Traditionally, the demand for public expenditures has been estimated using for explanatory variables the average values of per capita income, as well as other variables. The results of this approach are disappointing, due to the lack of a theoretical basis. The public choice model, on the other...

Central to this paper has been the idea that there might be a demand on the part of the citizens for having specific decision-mechanisms in specific types of situations. This demand cannot be deduced on purely theoretical grounds, but rather should be registered case by case. Theory might help...