Suchergebnisse

The traditional normative literature on fiscal federalism argues that redistributive policies should be centralized in order to avoid welfare- or tax-induced migration. However, recent evidence shows that even in a setup where the progressivity of the income tax schedule is centralized to an upper-layer government and local governments are involved in tax competition with only a tax shifter, local mobility induces income sorting. Hence, despite centralized redistributive taxation, the resulting effective tax schedule is less progressive than what is set in the tax code. We argue that upper-layer governments anticipate the impact of local income sorting and strategically adjust their statutory tax schedules. We analyze Swiss panel data and apply causal machine learning methods to identify the effects of decentralization on the statutory tax structure. We provide evidence that more decentralized cantons reduce the tax burden for lower and intermediate income classes and hence implement more redistributive statutory tax schedules. This strategic adjustment is limited by the mobility of the tax base.

In the economic literature various political institutions designed to control the government have been analyzed. However, an important institution has been neglected so far: independent auditing institutions with an extended mandate to analyze the budget draft and individual policy proposals. We argue that auditors with an extended mandate improve transparency and provide essential information on the impact of policy proposals on common pool resources. This leads to less wasteful spending and a more efficient allocation of public resources. We empirically analyze the policy impact of local auditors with an extended audit mandate in Switzerland. Auditors, who can evaluate and criticize policy proposals ex ante to policy decisions, significantly reduce the general tax burden and public expenditures. We find similar results with different datasets. These results are robust to various changes in the econometric specification.

In the economic literature various political institutions designed to control the government have been analyzed. However, an important institution has been neglected so far: independent auditing institutions with an extended mandate to analyze the budget draft and individual policy proposals. We argue that auditors with an extended mandate improve transparency and provide essential information on the impact of policy proposals on common pool resources. This leads to less wasteful spending and a more efficient allocation of public resources. We empirically analyze the policy impact of local auditors with an extended audit mandate in Switzerland. Auditors, who can evaluate and criticize policy proposals ex ante to policy decisions, significantly reduce the general tax burden and public expenditures. We find similar results with different datasets. These results are robust to various changes in the econometric specification.

Controlling government is a primary focus of the politico-economic literature. Recently, various political institutions have been analyzed from this perspective, most importantly balanced budget rules, fiscal federalism, and direct democracy. However, one type of institution has been neglected so far: elected competitors to the government. Such institutional competition between the government and an independent agency can be found at the Swiss local level, where finance commissions compete with the government. In some parts of Switzerland, local finance commissions can ex ante criticize government projects and bring alternative policy proposals onto the political agenda, which are then voted on by the citizens. Thus, they become strong competitors to the government. We econometrically investigate this institutional setting by comparing the 26 Swiss cantons. We find the power of the local finance commission to have an economically relevant, statistically significant and robust negative effect on the tax burden and on public expenditures. Adapted from the source document.

In einer finanzwirtschaftlich-empirischen Untersuchung wird die Wirkungsweise von Rechnungsprüfungskommissionen auf kommunaler Ebene in der Schweiz analysiert. Es wird gezeigt, dass unabhängige, mit umfassenden Prüfkompetenzen und Antragsrechten ausgestattete Rechnungsprüfungskommissionen in Kombination mit direkt-demokratischen Institutionen die Steuerbelastung und die Staatsausgaben in statistisch signifikanter Weise senken. (GB)

AbstractWe provide closed-form solutions for measuring electoral closeness of candidates in proportional representation (PR) systems. In contrast to plurality systems, closeness in PR systems cannot be directly inferred from votes. Our measure captures electoral closeness for both open- and closed-list systems and for both main families of seat allocation mechanisms. This unified measure quantifies the vote surplus (shortfall) for elected (nonelected) candidates. It can serve as an assignment variable in regression discontinuity designs or as a measure of electoral competitiveness. For illustration, we estimate the incumbency advantage for the parliaments in Switzerland, Honduras, and Norway.