. Diamond (1997) famously argued that "fractured land" was responsible for China's tendency toward political unification and … state formation in Eurasia. We find that either topography or productive land alone is sufficient to account for China … productivity in Northern China plays a central role in our simulations. We discuss how our results map into observed historical …

of centralization stressed in the existing literature disappear, suggesting that the case for decentralization must be … driven by political economy considerations. Our political economy analysis assumes that under decentralization public goods …

efficient decentralization of investment decisions permits the institution to economize on the information which must be passed …

between the federal and state governments in such a scheme of partial decentralization. Our model suggests that the …

This paper explores the empirical effects of decentralization on environmental quality by studying water pollution in …, supporting the traditional view that decentralization allows policies more tailored to local conditions. However, the analysis …