not have large stakes in the policy outcome; effective decisions over policies require taking into account policy …Policies are typically chosen by politicians and bureaucrats. This Paper investigates the criteria that should lead a … society to allocate policy tasks to elected policymakers (politicians) or non-elected bureaucrats. Politicians are preferable …

, political decisions are likely to produce economic policies that allow private individuals to appropriate less of the returns to … theoretical model that formally captures this idea. The model has a politico-economic equilibrium, which determines a sequence of … growth rates depending on structural parameters, political institutions and initial conditions. We then confront the model …

arrangements in a `federation' of countries. There are two levels of government: local and federal. Local policy redistributes … across individuals and affects the probability of aggregate shocks, while federal policy shares international risk. Policies … directly with individuals) with a `vertically-ordered' system like the EC (in which the federal government deals with national …

study special interest politics. Here the policy problem is multidimensional and we focus on specific political mechanisms … comparative politics, as we deal with policy choice under alternative political constitutions: we model some stylized features of …Observed fiscal policy varies greatly across time and countries. How can we explain this variation? This paper surveys …

incentive constraints on the policy-making process, such as lack of credibility, political opportunism, political ideology, and … divided government. The survey is organized in three parts. Part I deals with monetary policy in a simple Phillips curve model …, and political determinants of budget deficits. Part III studies economic growth in models with endogenous fiscal policy. …

country risk. Increased political instability increases the equilibrium loan size in the first regime and decreases it in the …This paper provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of the role played by domestic political incentives in the … regime. Hence the evidence indicates a positive effect of political instability on the demand for sovereign loans, as …

We investigate the effect of electoral rules and political regimes on fiscal policy outcomes in a panel of 61 … democracies from 1960 onwards. In presidential regimes, the size of government is smaller and less responsive to income shocks …

fiscal policy in different countries? We first consider taxation of capital in a two-country model, where a democratically …-chosen government in each country chooses tax policy. Higher capital mobility changes the politico-economic equilibrium in two ways. On … countries. On the other hand, it alters voters' preferences and makes them elect a different government: this `political effect …