This paper explores the role of political stability on fiscal policy choices in a time-series analysis over 158 years on the Swiss federal level. We argue that the fiscal-commons problem of public finances is affected by the time-horizon of a finance minister. Arguably, the incentives for an...

A common political claim is that decentralized governments undermine policy makers' ability to fight fiscal imbalance. This paper examines how different fiscal institutions influence the likelihood of a successful fiscal adjustment. Using a panel of the Swiss cantons from 1981 to 2001, we first...

Tax competition is discussed as a source of inefficiency in international taxation and in fiscal federalism. Two preconditions for the existence of such effects of tax competition are that mobile factors locate or reside in jurisdictions with - ceteris paribus - lower tax rates and that taxes...