This paper analyzes the dynamics of trade policy reform under democracy. In an overlapping generations model, heterogeneous agents may acquire skills when young, thereby determining the skill composition of their cohort. Current and anticipated trade policies influence education decisions, and...

We analyze the deficits of the German Länder for the period from 1960 to 2000 and test a number of hypotheses derived from the literature on the political economy of public expenditures and public deficits. Estimating a dynamic panel data model, we find evidence for political opportunism of the...

We analyze the effects of personal characteristics of 4239 political candidates on their performance in local elections in Germany. Our results show that a candidate's occupation plays a decisive role. Occupational effects can be explained by (a) an occupation's public reputation and (b) public...

This paper reconsiders the political economy approach to growth and distribution according to which (1) rising inequality induces more government redistribution; (2) more government redistribution is financed by higher distortionary taxation; and (3) higher distortionary taxes reduce economic...

We analyze the deficits of the German Länder for the period from 1960 to 2005 and test a number of hypotheses derived from the literature on the political economy of public deficits. Estimating a dynamic panel data model, we find evidence for political opportunism in the spirit of Rogoff and...

In this paper the political economy of revolutions is revisited, as it has been developed and applied in a number of publications by Acemoglu and Robinson. We criticize the fact that these authors abstract from collective-action problems and focus on inequality of income or wealth instead. In...

While people in democracies can vote their government out when they are discontent with its policies, those in dictatorships cannot do so. They can only attempt to expel the dictator via mass protests or revolutions. Based on a general cause-and-effect mechanism, the author analyzes whether such...

We develop a model of the incentives faced by members of parliament (MPs) when deciding whether to engage in effort for their constituencies to assess the effects of their having a criminal background. Political representatives with criminal backgrounds are considered a great problem in many...

In a society composed of a ruler and its citizens: what are the determinants of the political equilibrium between these two? This paper approaches this problem as a game played between a ruler who has to decide the distribution of the aggregate income and a group of agents/citizens who have the...

In actual environmental policy, the design of actual pollution emission taxes differs significantly with the optimal Pigovian tax. In particular, earmarking prevails and actual taxes are usually combined with regulation. Furthermore tax rates are generally too low to significantly influence...