Decentralised experimentation and mutual learning of public policies is seen as one of the important advantages of federal systems (Oates: laboratory federalism). Based upon Hayekian ideas of the advantages of decentralised experimentation (as a discovery procedure), we analyse the long-term...

Hayek's well-known evolutionary concept of "competition as a discovery procedure" can be characterized as a parallel process of experimentation, in which rivalrous firms generate and test hypotheses about the best way to fulfill the consumers' preferences. Through this permanent process of...