The veterans disability compensation (VDC) program, which provides a monthly stipend to disabled veterans, is the third largest American disability insurance program. Since the late 1990s, VDC growth has been driven primarily by an increase in claims from Vietnam veterans, raising concerns about...

The literature on the returns to training has pointed out that, immediately following a training episode, wages of participants in employer-sponsored training increase substantially while wages of participants in government-sponsored training hardly change. We argue that a clear selection issue...

Faced with the technological changes and with the rise of international competition, the competitiveness of firms is based more and more on innovation. In this context, the new innovating firms are regarded as source of competitive dynamism. However, these firms encounter difficulties to finance...

The issue of public investments became a very challenging subject for public decision makers since it incorporates the question of state performance, the quality of public finance and their effects on growth.The quality of public finance (QPF) is a multidimensional concept. It may be regarded as...

Using rainfall, public relief, and election data from India, we examine how governments respond to adverse shocks and how voters react to these responses. The data show that voters punish the incumbent party for weather events beyond its control. However, fewer voters punish the ruling party...

Increasing crime rates invariably result in calls for more police protection which requires the allocation of additional scarce resources to policing and public order. In an environment of fiscal pressures, the effectiveness of such public spending in deterring crime emerges as an important...

Using panel data for the period 1995-2008, we model the aid allocation decisions of the three largest official donors of humanitarian aid: the United States government, the United Kingdom government and the European Commission. We find evidence that donor decisions depend on both the...

Following a recent paper by Filippetti and Archibugi [Filippetti, A., Archibugi, D., 2011. Innovation in times of crisis: National systems of innovation, structure and demand. Research Policy 40(2), 179–192], this article aims to contribute to the sparse literature on the impacts of the recent...

This paper uses an intertemporal computable general equilibrium model to investigate the consequences of an expansive fiscal policy designed to accelerate economic growth in South Africa. A key contribution is made to existing literature on the transmission mechanism of fiscal policy in African...

The allocation and distribution of government resources is a political process by it is nature. Considerable amount of government spending goes to defence expenditure in Turkey. So, is defence spending affected from political business cycle? To answer this question, this study analyses...