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Mark Schelker
Title
Prof. Dr.
Last Name
Schelker
First name
Mark
Email
mark.schelker@unisg.ch
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PublicationAuditors and Fiscal Policy : Empirical Evidence on a Little Big InstitutionVarious political institutions designed to control the government have been analyzed in the academic literature. However, an important institution has been neglected so far: independent auditing institutions with an extended mandate to audit the budget draft and individual policy proposals. We argue that such auditors improve transparency and provide essential information on the impact of policy proposals on common pool resources, which leads to less wasteful spending. We empirically analyze the impact of such auditors on fiscal policy at the Swiss local level. Auditors who can evaluate and criticize policy proposals ex ante to policy decisions, significantly reduce the general tax burden and public expenditures. The results are similar for different datasets and robust to various changes in the econometric specification.Type: journal articleJournal: Journal of Comparative EconomicsVolume: 38Issue: 4
Scopus© Citations 27 -
PublicationIndependent and competing agencies: An effective way to control governmentControlling 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.Type: journal articleJournal: Public ChoiceVolume: 130Issue: 1/2
Scopus© Citations 17 -
PublicationType: journal articleJournal: Swiss Journal of Economics and StatisticsVolume: 139Issue: 3