Some politicians argue for the splitting and combining of states to increase government productivity, but there is a dearth of empirical evidence on the optimal size of a state. Using data from Indian states, I test a model of the optimal size of the state. I find that size and preference...

Some politicians argue for the splitting and combining of states to increase government productivity, but there is a dearth of empirical evidence on the optimal size of a state. Using data from Indian states, I test a model of the optimal size of the state. I find that size and preference...

This Article exposes a misapplication of federalism as the driving force behind the Supreme Court's extreme narrowing of the 42 U.S.C. § 1983 remedy for beneficiaries of federal-state cooperative spending programs. Originally, the Court applied a presumption, via § 1983's straightforward...

This paper examines the role of political alignment and the electoral business cycle on municipality revenues in Greece for the period 2003-2010. A panel dataset combining local and national elections with local budgets is used to run a fixed-effects econometric model. The findings suggest that...

Households may migrate between jurisdictions to secure preferred mixes of collectively sup-plied services and taxation. But devolution of taxes to sub-national jurisdictions could reduce expected tax revenue if some move to lower tax regimes, constraining devolved government policy. This paper...

This paper discusses how decentralized countries can achieve sound fiscal relations between the central government and lower government levels. The concepts of 'vertical gap' and 'vertical balance' provide an analytical framework for identifying and addressing key challenges. These concepts can...

An unfunded expenditure mandate occurs when a local government must provide a good or service by dictate of a higher level of government that does not supply an accompanying revenue source to fully finance the expenditure. This paper is the first to provide empirical evidence on the influence of...

This paper explores the nuanced relationship between fiscal decentralization and fiscal sustainability. Employing panel data analyses, it scrutinizes how decentralization influences fiscal discipline across different governmental levels. Results for 185 countries show that while tax...

In some ways, a 2012 symposium on “Dilemmas of State Debt” may seem a bit behind the news curve. At the end of 2010, municipal bond markets were in a deep funk. Analysts predicted that countless municipalities and perhaps one or more of the United States might default on their debt...