Most of the results are related to cantonal and local public revenue, spending and debt.
- lower level of public spending in cantons with fiscal referenda; this result is corroborated for the local level using data on 132 big Swiss cities (1990)
- substitutive relation between initiative and referendum: in canton where it is difficult to have a fiscal referendum, the initiative is used as a substitute in order to restrict public spending
- at the cantonal level, both fiscal referendum and initiative have a significantly negative impact on public revenue, with the overall impact on public deficit being positive
- at the local level, a significantly negative impact on both public debt and revenue can be observed (which is not the case for the cantonal level)
- the restrictive influence of the fiscal referendum on public debt (in the communities) is stronger than that of any other institution related to the budget process (through formal, constitutional restrictions or a person responsible for the budget process)
- at the local level, fiscal breaks (or other formal restrictions) are shown to have no impact on public spending or revenue on the local level (in contrast to the effects of fiscal referenda)
- by contrast, on the cantonal level these institutions such as fiscal breaks have a significantly negative influence on public debt and public deficit
- fiscal referenda restrict the centralisation process
- defined as the shift of revenue and spending from the local level to the cantonal level: in cantons with fiscal referendum the 'central' level has a smaller share of total expenditure (composed of both the central and local levels) than in more representative cantons
- the higher the level of direct democracy in a canton is, the closer its policy is to the voters' preferences and the less likely to imitate the (fiscal) policy of neighboring cantons (caused by political competition for votes)
- direct-democratic decision-making causes a higher legitimacy of cantonal policies in the eyes of its citizens. As a result, tax morale is higher in more direct-democratic cantons and mutual trust between tax administration and citizens can be established
- in direct-democratic cantons federal government grants are less demanded and a lower level of fiscal equalization transfers occurs
With respect to social indicators, we have found the following:
- pre-tax and post-tax distribution of income is more equal in cantons with higher levels of direct democracy
- given the initial (in)equality, more redistribution occurs in more direct democratic cantons, which indicates that (less) financial resources are targeted more efficiently
- direct democracy exhibits a limiting impact on police expenditure and on expenditure for the judicial systems, i.e. courts and administration
- although less means are available for crime prevention and prosecution in more direct democratic cantons, the cantonal crime level is significantly lower for property crime and weakly higher for hate crime
- direct democracy leads to a lower level of combined cantonal and local expenditure for public education
- pupils' performance is significantly lower in more direct democratic cantons than in more representative ones
- the happiness enhancing impact of direct democarcy was not corroborated using the Swiss Household Panel
