Representation is one of the most important criteria by which to judge electoral systems. In this paper, I focus on one aspect of representative democracy: the formation of electoral district boundaries. It is well known that majoritarian systems give rise to highly biased seat–vote curves,...

In this paper we set up a political economy model of a two-country world economy, where an international agreement on the provisions of public goods generating cross-border externalities, such as environment protection, subject to feasibility, efficiency and equity constraints, has to be...

We study which policy tool and at what level a majority chooses in order to reduce activities with negative externalities. We consider three instruments: a rule, that sets an upper limit to the activity which produces the negative externality, a quota that forces a proportional reduction of the...

Two significant challenges hamper the analyses of the collective choice of educational vouchers. One is the multi-dimensional choice set arising from the interdependence of the voucher, public education spending, and taxation. Second, even absent a voucher, preferences over public spending are...

A normative conflict arises when multiple plausible rules exist, specifying how one ought to behave in a given situation. In such cases, enforcing one normative rule can lead to a sequence of mutual retaliatory sanctions, which we refer to as a feud. We investigate the hypothesis that normative...

We consider a federation with two layers of government, in which Leviathan policy makers levy an excise tax on a consumption good that generates a negative externality and that is produced in an imperfectly competitive market. When both layers of government are allowed to tax, policy choices are...

This paper uses panel data from the 16 larger states in India during the period 1967–2000 to study the effects of female political representation in the State Legislatures on public goods, policy and expenditure. It finds that politicians' gender affects policy, but that their social position,...