Previous results on political cycles as a signal of competency assumed that opportunism was common knowledge. If opportunism is not common knowledge, there may be a partially pooling equilibrium where cycles indicate opportunism rather than competency. Insofar as more discretionality increases...

During recessions, state governments frequently face substantial midyear budget shortfalls. Numerous states are now experiencing such crises again. These fiscal crises are often blamed on the cyclical decline in revenue growth or reductions in federal aid. Others have suggested that enacting...

This paper analyses the monetary policy of the Most Serene Republic of Venice in the years of calamities using a modern equivalent of helicopter money, namely an extraordinary issue of (base) money, coupled with capital losses for the issuer. We treat the 1629 famine and the 1630-1631 plague as...

We investigate the behavior of consumer confidence around national elections in the EU-15 countries during 1985:1-2007:3. Consumer confidence increases before the date of elections and falls subsequently by almost the same amount. It is able to predict the strength of the performance of the...

This paper focuses on the observed empirical relationship between fiscal rules and budget deficits, and examines whether this correlation is driven by an omitted variable, namely voter preferences. We make use of two different estimation methods to capture voter preferences in a panel of Swiss...

The paper models the incentives of a politician to delegate the decision making power in a sovereign wealth fund to an independent external manager. It formalizes the learning-effects as well as the increase of transparency of the SWF and the rise of investment possibilities associated with...

The paper models the incentives of a politician to delegate the decision making power in a sovereign wealth fund to an independent external manager. It formalizes the learning-effects as well as the increase of transparency of the SWF and the rise of investment possibilities associated with...

This paper examines the determination of the rate of growth in an economy in which two political parties, each representing a different social class, negotiate the magnitude and allocation of taxes. Taxes may increase growth if they finance public services but reduce growth when used to...