A common political claim is that decentralized governments undermine policy-makers' ability to resist fiscal imbalance. This paper examines how fiscal centralization influences the likelihood of a successful fiscal adjustment. Using a panel of Swiss cantons from 1981 to 2001, we empirically...

Several authors have argued that a centralization of fiscal powers in a federation is less likely to occur if citizens have to approve a change in the assignments of responsibilities by a popular referendum. This outcome may be due to the fact that logrolling is more difficult under direct than...

The fiscal commons problem is one of the most prominent explanations of excessive spending in political economics. For a panel of the 26 Swiss cantons over the 1980-1998 periods, this paper explores the role of fragmented governments on fiscal policy outcomes. We distinguish between two variants...