State and Local Retirement Plans in the United States explains how economic and political events have shaped the development of pension plans in the last century, and it argues that changes in the structure and generosity of these plans will continue to shape policy and funding in the future. It...

"When Cities Lobby tells the story of what happens when city officials rely on professional lobbyists to represent their interests in state government. In a political environment characterized by intense urban-rural polarization and growing hostility between cities and state legislatures, the...

Although political and legal institutions are essential to any nation's economic development, the forces that have shaped these institutions are poorly understood. Drawing on rich evidence about the development of the American states from the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth century, this...

Am Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts existieren in Europa mehrere Spielarten eines föderalen Staatsaufbaus. Im Zuge der europäischen Integration ist ein Spannungsfeld zwischen der Wahrnehmung von Aufgaben auf der europäischen und der nationalen Ebene entstanden. Die Analyse der verschiedenen...

Transfers and bailouts: enforcing local fiscal discipline with lessons from U.S. federalism / Robert P. Inman -- Constraining subnational fiscal behavior in Canada: different approaches, similar results? / Richard M. Bird and Almos Tassonyi -- Vertical imbalance and fiscal behavior in a welfare...

This paper reviews the fiscal relations between the three levels of government in Austria and points to the scope for reforming them with a view to improving the efficiency of the public sector. Key areas of public sector activity are subject to complex relations across the three layers of...