We study how natural-resource rents affect the risk of internal conflict within countries and how the federal structure of countries influences this relationship. Natural-resource abundance may induce excessive rent-seeking and thus increase the risk of internal conflict. Fiscal and political...

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries are among the world's top emitters of CO2 and SO2 in per capita terms. The objective of this paper is to analyze whether investing in the democratic development of these countries is an effective tool to make the economic growth in this region...

In this paper we present three simple theoretical models to explain the influence of the possibility to make non-binding announcements on future investment behaviour in public good settings. Our models build on the idea that voluntary contributions to the supply of a public good might be...

The majority of theoretical and empirical studies on the relationship between decentralization and corruption argues that the devolution of power might be a feasible instrument to keep corruption at bay. We argue that this result crucially depends on the possibility to monitor bureaucrat's...

The Iranian economy is highly vulnerable to oil price fluctuations. This paper analyzes the dynamic relationship between oil price shocks and major macroeconomic variables in Iran by applying a VAR approach. The study points out the asymmetric effects of oil price shocks; for instance, positive...

This paper examines whether the federal structure of aid-receiving countries matters in explaining aid effectiveness. Following the decentralization theorem, the devolution of powers should increase aid effectiveness, since local decision-makers are better informed about local needs. At the same...

Rational partisan theory of political business cycles suggests differences in inflation under left-wing and right-wing governments. It also suggests temporary post-electoral booms after election of left-wing governments and temporary recessions after election of right-wing ones. However, the...

This paper empirically studies the impact of decentralization and inter-jurisdictional competition on foreign aid effectiveness. For this purpose we examine a commonly used empirical growth model, considering different measures of fiscal decentralization. Our panel estimations reveal that...

We study how natural-resource rents a ffect the risk of internal conflict within countries and how the federal structure of countries influences this relationship. Natural-resource abundance may induce excessive rent-seeking and thus increase the risk of internal conflict. Fiscal and political...

The objective of this paper is to analyze whether successful environmental policies spread across geographical space. We examine the existence of such environmental spatial policy spillovers using the example of wastewater treatment in Mexican municipalities. Untreated wastewater is a key...