This paper examines the effect of local political decision-making institutions (i.e., direct democracy vs …. representative democracy) on citizens' preferences toward public spending. Exogenous variation in institutions comes from a … democracy based on a legally stipulated population threshold in the Swiss canton (state) of Vaud. Fiscal policy preferences by …

In this paper, I analyze the voting outcomes of two very similar Swiss referendum ballots concerning the federal …

experiment from Switzerland, I test this hypothesis empirically. I analyze the voting outcomes of two very similar referendum …

excluded from the voters' right of the initiative? I study this question by extending the analysis to German direct democracy … 2009, I show that in this sample and in contrast to the Swiss and US evidence direct democracy causes an expansion of local … towards exploiting their direct democracy rights and their preferences for local public policies. To address this issue I use …