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This study analyzes the interaction between distorted election choices and the architecture of government with a focus on the implications for the accountability of politicians. Contrasting centralized with decentralized political systems, it is shown that centralization is likely to result in higher accountability if election choices are subject to small random distortions. Furthermore, equity and efficiency arguments for uniform policies in centralized systems are derived as these are likely to result in the better overall performance of politicians and in more equal performance across regions.

Random factors such as bad weather or exogenous economic shocks affect the re-election of politicians and can reduce accountability. Such distorted election choices interact with the architecture of government. Contrasting centralized with decentralized political systems, this study shows that centralization is likely to result in higher accountability if election choices are subject to small random distortions. Furthermore, equity and efficiency arguments for uniform policies in centralized systems are derived as these are likely to result in the better overall performance of politicians and in more equal performance across regions.

We study the pass-through of indirect taxes on beer prices in the European Union (EU). Exploiting the variation of value added tax rates, beer excise tax rates, and beer prices in a panel of monthly data from 1996 to 2016 of all current 28 EU member states, we estimate the tax pass-through of specific beer excise taxes and ad valorem value added taxes (VAT). VAT is under-shifted at a rate of approximately 70%. Specific excise taxes are almost fully shifted to prices in the EU, but, in contrast to the empirical findings for the US, there is no evidence of over-shifting. The difference between the two tax pass-through rates points towards the importance of imperfect competition in the European beer market. Excise tax increases are passed through faster and at a higher rate than excise tax decreases.

AbstractWe study the role of competition for the hold‐up problem in foreign direct investment in resource‐based industries. The host country government is not only unable to commit not to expropriate investment ex post but also unable to commit to the provision of local resources. In the case of competition for local resources, this dual commitment problem triggers higher investment levels and increases host country revenues, but hurts profits of international investors.

We study the pass-through of indirect taxes on beer prices in the European Union (EU). Exploiting the variation of value added tax rates, beer excise tax rates, and beer prices in a panel of monthly data from 1996 to 2016 of all current 28 EU member states, we estimate the tax pass-through of specific beer excise taxes and ad valorem value added taxes, respectively. Ad valorem taxes are under-shifted at a rate of approximately 70%. Specific excise taxes are almost fully shifted to prices in the EU, but, in contrast to the empirical findings for the US, there is no evidence of over-shifting. Nevertheless, the difference between ad valorem and specific tax pass-through rates indicates that imperfect competition plays an important role in the European beer market.

We study the strategic incentives of regional governments to allocate their budget to public investment and to public consumption expenditures against the background of an incentive-compatible redistribution policy set by the central government. Regional investment changes the productivity distribution in the economy, which aects the design of the optimal tax-transfer system by the central government. The strategic incentives can dier between rich and poor regions depending on the nature of the investment. Rich and poor regions both have strategic incentives to reduce investment which increases the productivity of all individuals in a region. For investment which only increases the productivity of a part of the population, rich regions have reduced investment incentives, whereas poor regions have increased strategic incentives to invest. Our results hint at potential benets of appropriate dierentiation of matching grants.

We analyze the optimal regional pattern of public employment in an information-constrained second-best redistribution policy showing that regionally differentiated public employment can serve as an expenditure side tagging device, bypassing or relaxing the equity-efficiency trade-off. The optimal pattern exhibits higher levels of public employment in low productivity regions and is more pronounced the higher is the degree of regional inequality within the country. Empirically, using a panel of European regions from 1995-2007, we find evidence that public employment is systematically higher in low productivity regions. The latter effect is stronger in countries with higher levels of regional inequality.

Globalization of economic activities and decentralization of government organization are occurring simultaneously. We consider the implications of government decentralization for intra-national and international trade. Decentralization can create barriers to intra-national trade, but can make international trade relatively more attractive. Imports as substitutes to inbound foreign direct investment suggest a stronger positive effect of decentralization on imports relative to exports. Our empirical results from a standard gravity model find supportive evidence for these conjectures.