Recent empirical literature has shown that the determination of intergovernmental grants is highly influenced by the political bargaining power of the recipient states. In these models federal politicians are assumed to buy the support of state voters, state politicians and state interest groups...

The fiscal commons problem is one of the most prominent explanations of excessive spending in political economics. The more fragmented a government, the higher its spending. In this paper we investigate to what extent this problem can be mitigated by different fiscal or constitutional...

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 likeli-hood of a successful fiscal adjustment. Using a panel of the Swiss cantons from 1981 to 2001, we first...

We propose and test a positive model of fiscal federalism in which centralization is less likely to occur in jurisdictions with referendum decisions on policy cen-tralization. Citizens choose centralization of public spending and revenue in order to internalize spillovers if individual...

The fiscal commons problem is one of the most prominent explanations of excessive spending and indebtedness in political economics. The more fragmented a government, the higher its spending, deficits and debt. In this paper we investigate to what extent this problem can be miti-gated by...

After more than five years have passed since the start of the global financial crisis, many European countries are still suffering from financial instability, surging sover- eign debt, economic stagnation or decline, high unemploym ent and political turmoil. We compare consequences and policy...

Dieses Papier untersucht die Stabilisierungswirkung der Schweizer Fiskalpolitik. Erstens zeigt sich, dass in etwa 60% der Fälle die verfolgte Fiskalpolitik des Bundes antizyklisch wirkte. In Rezessionen wirkte die Fiskalpolitik des Bundes immer antizyklisch. Im Falle der Kantone wurden knapp...

In this paper, we provide empirical evidence for the influence of income taxes on the choice of residence of taxpayers at the local level. The fact that Swiss communities can individually set tax multipliers thereby shifting the progressive tax scheme which is fixed at the cantonal (state) level...

Zur Konjunkturstabilisierung haben Regierungen und Notenbanken in den Jahren 2008 und 2009 schnell und entschlossen mit Impulsprogrammen reagiert. Die erhoffte Wirkung blieb nicht aus, indessen wurden mit den staatlichen Eingriffen neue Probleme geschaffen. Die Staatsverschuldung hat einige...

The current debt crisis in many OECD countries calls for adequate strategies in budget consolidation. To regain fiscal solvency many governments base their fiscal adjustments at least partly on spending cuts. A common political claim is that spending cuts rely too much on investment thereby...