Allocative and redistributive rules in the public sector are often less contingent on available information than normative theory would suggest. This paper offers a political economy explanation. Under different rules, even if the observable outcomes of policies remain the same, the...

This paper studies optimal redistribution among two different regions in a federal state. Regional governments supply local public goods financed with distorting local taxes. They have better information on their tax bases than the federal government. We model this both as an adverse selection...

We compare single round vs runoff elections under plurality rule, allowing for partly endogenous party formation. Under runoff elections, the number of political candidates is larger, but the influence of extremist voters on equilibrium policy and hence policy volatility are smaller, because the...

Dati gli ampi divari di basi imponibili esistenti tra le regioni italiane, è necessario che il decentramento fiscale sia accompagnato da un sistema di perequazione a favore delle regioni più povere. Il dibattito italiano sul "federalismo fiscale" condivide questa necessità, ma non discute in...