In a society composed of a ruler and its citizens: what are the determinants of the political equilibrium between these two? This paper approaches this problem as a game played between a ruler who has to decide the distribution of the aggregate income and a group of agents/citizens who have the...

Recent studies suggest a considerable amount of horizontal strategic interaction amongst governments exists. The empirical approach in these studies typically relies on estimating reaction functions in a uni-dimensional policy framework, where a nonzero slope estimate suggests strategic...

Policy debates on trade and the environment frequently refer to a need for countries linked by trade to co-ordinate, or even harmonise, their purely domestic environmental policies. Underlying this argument is a concern that national governments will not fully internalise environmental...

This paper critically assesses the literature on the relationship between economic integration and the environment. In particular, we investigate how trade liberalisation and capital market integration affect environmental policy and thus environmental quality. Conversely, we also study how...

We consider environmental policy in a federal system where states face purely domestic environmental problems. It is normally argued that in this context, environmental policy is best set at the state level, perhaps because of better local information. To provide a rationale for federal...

In this paper we investigate the relationship between inequality and the environment in a growing economy from a political economy perspective. We consider an endogenous growth economy, where growth generates pollution and a deterioration of the environment. Public expenditures may either be...