We introduce political economics into the soft budget constraint problem by asking if the timing of elections has the potential to harden budget constraints. Specifically, we ask under which circumstances the soft budget constraint problem is worse - with synchronized elections, i.e....

International differences in fuel taxation are huge, and may be justified by different local negative externalities that taxes must correct, as well as by different preferences for public spending. In this context, should a worldwide unique carbon tax be added to these local taxes to correct the...

In France, since 2001, home care for disabled elderly can be partially subsidized by a public allowance (allocation personnalisée d'autonomie - APA). For eligible elderly people, the amount to be paid for one hour of formal home care depends on their income, according to a national rule, but...

In this paper, we try to understand the economic policies choice of countries in terms of size. According to the case whether a country is large or small, it will have different incentives in the choice of its growth strategy. Theoretically, a large country would prefer use a policy which...

In this paper, we focus on the concept of size of country (or economy). Specifically, within the European Union (EU), we look for growth discrepancies between countries according to their size. We try to explain growth differential using arguments related to the size of countries. Thus, we...

In this paper, we pursue several goals; we first check if the downward trend in corporate income tax rates in Europe reflects a strategy of tax competition, and not a "yardstick competition" in neighboring countries. We estimate the scale of fiscal externalities on neighboring countries in terms...

This paper contribtes to the small empirical literature dealing with strategic tax behaviors of small EU countries. We estimate tax reaction functions of national governments competing with each other. Deriving a simple model of tax competition in a Nash and Stackelberg framework, we use panel...

The main purpose of the present text is assessing EU law from the perspective of its "impact" on national systems of social protection, social services and labour law: how does EU governance affect "social policy" in the Union? After recalling the main characteristics of EU governance and...

International agreements about transnational issues are difficult to reach, as the examples of the Copenhagen summit or the never-ending discussions of the future of the European Union make clear. In this paper, we relate this difficulty to the political process and the conflicts of interest...

From 2004 on a new Lisbon strategy was in force, after the Commission and Council's decisions to refocus the previous European Employment strategy and associated Open methods of coordination in the social area. After Kok's taskforce report, the order of the day was to focus on structurall...