The comparison between specific (per unit) and ad valorem (percentage) taxation has been one of the oldest issues in public finance. In Cournot markets, with deterministic costs structures, conventional wisdom has it that ad valorem taxation tax-revenue dominates specific. It is shown that in...

Conventional wisdom has it that outside sources of information enhance the capability of political institutions to separate selfish from benevolent incumbents. This paper investigates, in the presence of innovative public policies whose outcomes are uncertain, the role of outside information and...

This paper analyzes a simple model of taxation in a federal system within which policymakers are revenue-maximizing Leviathans and fiscal externalities arise not only horizontally, across the "states," but also vertically between levels of government. Such an economy is characterized by...

A rather neglected issue in the tax competition literature is the dependence of equilibrium outcomes on the presence of firms and shoppers (two-sided markets). Making use of a model of vertical and horizontal differentiation, within which jurisdictions compete by providing public goods and...

We derive the equilibrium level of redistribution from one mobile factor (say, the rich or capital) to another possibly mobile factor (say, the poor or labour) when regions choose both their inter-regional transfers and redistributive policies non-cooperatively. It is shown that inter-regional...

The private provision mechanism is individually incentive compatible but inefficient. The Lindahl mechanism is efficient but not incentive compatible. We analyze the outcome of the manipulated Lindahl mechanism. When the demand announcements of participants are unrestricted the Lindahl mechanism...