Suchergebnisse

This work analyzes the impact of asymmetric financial constraints on the platforms of parties, using a formal model of elections. The main results show that when a party faces a tight financial constraint, the platform chosen in equilibrium is further away from its ideal point compared with the case when campaign expenses are unlimited. Moreover, we show that in the presence of asymmetric budget constraints, a financially advantaged party converges to the median voter and a disadvantaged one diverges away. The strength of the latter effect depends on the salience of the policy issue in question. The results are tested by using a dataset of party positions and salience and confirm the theoretical predictions.

This work looks at the impact of electoral rules on female participation in local legislative bodies using a natural experiment involving a series of changes to electoral law in Poland. Using an exogenous population threshold dividing municipalities into ones with proportional and ones with majoritarian elections, we estimate the effect of each electoral system on female representation. Contrary to the literature on the national elections, we ftnd that more females are elected to local councils under a majoritarian system. We link this observation to countering party bias in list placements and lower costs of electoral participation in the majoritarian system.

This work looks at the policies aimed at promoting female participation in local legislative bodies using a series of changes to electoral law in Poland. Using an exogenous population threshold dividing municipalities into ones with proportional and ones with majoritarian elections, we estimate the effect of the electoral system on female representation. Moreover, we use difference-in-discontinuities to look at the effect of an introduction of a female quota on female participation in local councils. Contrary to the literature for the national elections, we find that more females are elected to local councils in the majoritarian system. We link this observation to countering party bias in list placements and lower costs of electoral participation in the majoritarian system. We find that the female quota has a strong positive effect on the percentage of females in the local council. It increases the pool of female candidates and has a positive effect on their list placements. It does not, however, create spillovers to neighboring regions.

This work looks at the policies aimed at promoting female participation in local legislative bodies using a series of changes to electoral law in Poland. We use a difference-in-discontinuities design to examine the effect of an introduction of a female quota on female participation in local councils. We find that the female quota has a strong positive effect on the percentage of females in the local council by increasing the pool of female candidates. It does not, however, affect the individual probability of being elected as a female, suggesting that its effect on voters' preferences is limited.

In this work we simulate the effects of tax autonomy of the Austrian states on the levels of public employment in each state. We show that depending on the strength of the public sector lobby, tax autonomy would require reduction of employment in the public sector between 25% and 35% of the current level. We also show that tax autonomy increases welfare levels by 1% to 1.5%, that is that the positive change in the disposable income of the workers more than offsets the welfare loss resulting from lower public goods' provision. Finally, we show that reduction of public employment is welfare-superior to an alternative scenario, in which employment levels are held constant but the wage levels in the public sector need to be adjusted.

We apply the difference-in-discontinuities design to disentangle the fiscal effects of the governance system conditional on electoral systems. We take advantage of a natural experiment, which involves two institutional reforms at the local level in Poland. The first reform introduced two electoral rules, which change along an exogenous population threshold: smaller municipalities use majoritarian elections, larger municipalities use proportional elections. The second reform changed the governance system in Polish municipalities from "parliamentary" to "presidential". Our results indicate that a change from parliamentary to presidential form led to lower vertical fiscal imbalance predominantly in the jurisdictions with majoritarian elections and to a lesser extent in municipalities governed by proportional elections. This therefore confirms an interaction effect between the forms of government and electoral rules.

We analyze the effectiveness of an increase in government consumption for stimulating growth for diverse levels of public debt in the European Union. We conclude, that growth rate can be stimulated in the short run by an increase in government consumption but only at low levels of public debt. Moreover, we find that an increase in intermediate consumption is more effective than an increase in compensation of public employees in stimulating output growth.

According to the fiscal federalism literature sub-central budget constraints become softer when local governments are more dependent on revenues over which they have no discretion. As a consequence of higher "transfer dependency", sub-central governments can expect to be bailed out by the central government and therefore tend to accumulate higher levels of debt. We test this conjecture with data from Austrian municipalities. Austria is a fiscally highly centralised federation in which tax autonomy at the sub-central level is almost absent. Our identification strategy is based on a discontinuity caused by a special regulation on population weights in the tax sharing agreement between central government and the municipalities. We analyse the discontinuity in the conditional expectation of borrowing given population size to unveil an average causal effect of the treatment. Our results indicate that in line with theoretical expectations municipalities with higher revenue dependency observe higher net borrowing per capita. We also find that almost one half of the observed discontinuity works through an investment channel. Net borrowing is spatially correlated.

Die österreichische Bundesregierung hat sich im Regierungsprogramm die Umsetzung einer ökosozialen Steuerreform zum Ziel gesetzt. Damit sollen CO2-Emissionen stärker besteuert werden, um internationalen Verpflichtungen zur Reduktion des Ausstoßes von Treibhausgasemissionen nachzukommen. Aus ökonomischer Sicht können der Emissionshandel und Steuern effiziente Instrumente sein, um dieses Ziel mit möglichst geringen Kosten zu erreichen. Dabei ist der Emissionshandel grundsätzlich vorzuziehen, da er die Erreichung eines Reduktionsziels "garantieren" kann. Im internationalen Vergleich zeigt sich, dass in einer Vielzahl europäischer Länder eine CO2-bezogene Abgabe, teilweise schon seit geraumer Zeit, existiert. Im Vergleich ist aber zu berücksichtigen, dass in Österreich ebenso fiskalisch bedeutsame Abgaben bestehen, die CO2-Emissionen indirekt besteuern. Der internationale Vergleich zeigt, dass die Höhe der Steuer in einzelnen Ländern Europas sehr unterschiedlich ausfällt, von deutlich unter 10 Euro bis knapp 120 Euro je Tonne CO2 in Schweden. Im Schnitt über die Länder mit einer CO2-Abgabe beträgt diese etwa 35 Euro. In Deutschland sieht das nationale Emissionshandelssystem derzeit einen Preis von 25 Euro vor, der bis 2025 schrittweise auf 55 Euro erhöht werden soll. In relevanten Vergleichsländern ist die Einhebung einer CO2-Abgabe mit einer Form der Vergütung der Einnahmen an die Abgabenleistenden verbunden. Dies erfolgt beispielsweise in der Schweiz auf Basis der Lohnsumme eines Unternehmens bzw. pauschal an private Haushalte. In Schweden wurde die Einkommensteuerbelastung reduziert. In Deutschland ist derzeit nur eine Reduktion der ErneuerbarenEnergie-Gesetz-Umlage geplant. Dies würde in Österreich den Beiträgen zur Ökostromförderung entsprechen. Aus ökonomischer Sicht würde das Wachstum und die Beschäftigung bei einer Senkung der Steuern auf das Einkommen (Einkommensteuer und Körperschaftsteuer) und einer Lohnnebenkostensenkung am kräftigsten gestärkt werden. Diese Abgaben weisen auch ein hinreichend großes Aufkommen für eine Rückvergütung auf. Damit könnten die Wachstumskräfte in der Ökonomie und die Beschäftigungsnachfrage gestärkt werden. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommen auch Studien, die sich mit der Rückvergütung von Umweltabgaben beschäftigen. Um den Handlungsspielraum zu erweitern, wäre ein Grenzausgleichsystem (border adjustment) eine Ergänzung zu einer CO2-Bepreisung. Exporte wären vom CO2-Preis entlastet und Importe mit einer CO2-Bepreisung belastet. Je größer der Wirtschaftsraum ist, der ein solches Grenzausgleichssystem einführt, desto größer wäre der Druck auch auf Drittstaaten, ebenfalls weniger CO2- intensiv zu produzieren.