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...

Critical-level (CL) utilitarianism with both fixed and variable critical levels is applied to the problem of redistribution in a federation with free mobility. We are interested in intra-regional inequality when redistribution policies are organized decentrally in a federation. Due to free...

The economic effects of federalism are unclear: some papers find that federalism has strong positive effects on a number of economically relevant variables, others find negative effects. The results often crucially hinge upon the proxies for federalism used. In this paper, we critically survey...

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...