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This paper discusses how a closer interaction with Political Scientists could impact on Swiss Political Economists by concentrating on four specific hypotheses. The first thesis evaluates how increased interdisciplinary interaction affects the incentives of Swiss Political Economists. It somewhat pessimistically posits that interdisciplinary interaction does not necessarily inseminate the work of Political Economists. The second thesis is more optimistic & discusses some aspects of the politico-economic process which have been neglected so far in Political Economics but could be integrated thanks to the interaction with Political Scientists. The third thesis proposes that Swiss Political Economists should learn from Political Scientists to be more critical of contemporary Swiss institutions. The fourth thesis proposes that Political Economists & Political Scientists should not only discuss the application of economic reasoning to politics, but they should also investigate which governance mechanisms can be transferred from the polity to the economy. References. Adapted from the source document.

Abstract
Today political competition and thus the politicians' incentives to cater for the citizens' preferences are weakened by protectionist regulations aiming at the politicians' origin, their incomes and the 'production process of politics'. This paper suggests abolishing these regulations and institutionalizing an open, international market for politics. Foreign as well as profit-seeking 'policy producers' should be allowed to run directly for office without nominating specific individuals. This enables a policy supplier to become active in several countries and jurisdictions and thus to build up an international reputation for being credible, i.e. of sticking to his promises and not exploiting the voters after election. The deregulation programme strengthens the influence of the weakly organized social groups and the governments' incentives to pursue what is of general interest.

Abstract
Cooperative discourse procedures produce consensual siting proposals for NIMBY-projects-but only if these proposals do not affect the final siting decision. Then, the members of the discourse commissions stay independent and face few incentives to pursue consequentialist interests. However, the more influential discourse procedures become, the stronger the interest groups' incentives are to take advantage of them. Thus, cooperative discourses turn into competitive, interest-centred procedures whose outcome is rejected by the less influential groups. The evolution of discourse procedures into functionally specialized parliaments or even into FOCJ (Functional, Overlapping, Competing Jurisdictions) seems worth pursuing.

Abstract
Ökonomen vertreten Kostenwahrheit im Sinne einer angemessenen Bepreisung negativer externer Effekte, weil sie die Handelungsträger motiviert, die von ihnen verursachten externen Effekte in ihrem wirtschaftlichen Handeln zu berücksichtigen. Aus politisch-ökonomischer Sicht ist Kostenwahrheit sogar noch wichtiger. Sie motiviert die politischen Handlungsträger die gesellschaftlichen Kosten ihres politischen Handelns zu berücksichtigen und die externen Kosten genauer zu erfassen als bei alternativen Politikmaßnahmen wie Geboten oder Verboten. Doch gerade wegen ihrer Vorteile setzt sich Kostenwahrheit im politischen Prozess selten vollständig durch. Denn sie verengt den Spielraum von Politikern, sich und den ihnen nahestehenden Interessengruppen wirtschaftliche und politische Renten zu verschaffen. Zugleich wird das Konzept der Kostenwahrheit missbraucht, um nur »Kostenscheinwahrheit« und neue Renten zu schaffen. Entscheidend ist daher, echte Kostenwahrheit durch geeignete institutionelle Regelungen abzusichern.

AbstractDemocratic politics suffers from numerous diseases such as lack of inclusiveness, time-inconsistency, short-termism, negative campaigning, lack of trust in and between governments, and many more. These diseases affect all countries, albeit to a differing extent. How can they be cured? From a politico-economic perspective, an institutional approach is required. We look at a country where these political diseases seem to play a relatively minor role: Switzerland. So far, Switzerland is renowned for its extensive direct democracy and federalism. However, its electoral system has been largely neglected. It uniquely combines proportional representation and majoritarian elections on all government levels. In contrast to the international standard, Swiss majority votes do not take place in single-member districts but in multi-member districts. We analyze how the interplay of majoritarian elections in multi-member districts and proportional representation mitigates many of the political diseases.

Public debts capitalize into property prices. This so far neglected fact has important consequences for the tax vs. debt choice. Property owners suffer more from the debt burden and, thus, have a stronger preference for tax financing of government spending than tenants. As a consequence of the resulting democratic struggle between property owners and tenants, the property ownership rate in a jurisdiction negatively affects public debts. We provide empirical support for this hypothesis by analyzing a cross-section of the 171 communities in the Swiss Canton of Zurich in the year 2000.

Public debts capitalize into property prices. Therefore, property owners tend to favor tax over debt financing for government spending. In contrast, tenants do not suffer from debt capitalization. Thus, they tend to favor debt over tax financing. Our model of the resulting democratic fight between property owners and tenants over public debts and taxes predicts that the property ownership rate in a jurisdiction negatively effects the debt level. We provide empirical support for this hypothesis by analyzing a cross-section of the 171 communities in the Swiss Canton of Zurich in the year 2000.