This paper explores the link between fiscal decentralization and government size in Latin America. While most related work attempts to test Brennan and Buchanan's "Liviathan" hypothesis, here the emphasis is placed on a different channel: the potential for decentralization to aggravate the...

Government exchange rate regime choice is constrained by both political and economic factors. One political factor is the role of special interests: the larger the tradable sectors exposed to international competition, the less likely is the maintenance of a fixed exchange rate regime. Another...

While economists have tended to focus on specific public policies when developing recommendations, the achievement of welfare objectives might depend more on the quality of policies than their content. This paper develops several measures of the qualities of policies across countries, arguing...