This paper challenges the assertion that European politics would be closer to the citizens' preferences if decision power were transferred from the Council of Ministers to the European Parliament. On the one hand, citizens benefit from a greater transparency in the Parliamentś debates compared...

Förderprogramme werden häufig damit zu rechtfertigen versucht, dass induzierte Mehreinnahmen bei Steuern und Beitragen dazu führen können, dass die zu erwartenden (fiskalischen) Erträge der Förderung deren unmittelbaren (fiskalischen) Kosten übertreffen. Ziel des Gutachtens ist die...

States merge local governments to achieve economies of scale. Little is known to which extent mergers of county-sized local governments reduce expenditures, and influence political outcomes. I use the synthetic control method to identify the effect of mergers of large local governments in...

In the public debate, poor employment performance has often been associated with the existence of extensive labour market regulations and a lack of commitment to far-sighted public policies. This paper investigates the relation between policy myopia and labour market institutions. We develop a...

Support for balanced regional development with participatory approaches has a long tradition in EU funding programmes for rural development. LEADER started 25 years ago and now has 2600 Local Action Groups (LAGs). These LAGs collaborate as a kind of a public-private partnership on the basis of...