In this paper we empirically examine whether public facilities like providing primary school, medical clinics, electricity etc help incumbents to stay in power. Specifically, we analyze the parliamentary election outcomes in 483 constituents in rural India from 1971 to 1991. This study is based...

I analyse a yardstick competition game using a spatial voting model, where voters vote for a candidate according to the distance between their Ideal Point and the policy selected by a candidate. The policy which is closest to a voter’s IP provides the voter with a higher utility so that...

In this paper I will analyse the redistribution of income amongst n generations using the Single-mindedness Theory. I will introduce a new expression for the balanced-budget constraint, no longer based on lump- sum transfers as in the traditional literature, but rather on more realistic labour...

This paper analyzes how corruption affects the composition of public expenditures. First, a two-stage rent-seeking model with endogenous rent-setting is derived that captures both "political corruption" and "bureaucratic corruption". The model illustrates how asymmetries between industries in...

The analysis presented in this paper deals with two main issues: the one of debt sustainability, meant in the particular acceptation proposed in this article, and the one of the effects of debt decumulation for the various territorial communities, in particular for the weak areas of Italy...

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we analyze the Inter-territorial Compensation Fund (ICF) as a regional policy instrument contemplated in the 1978 Spanish Constitution. Attention is focused on the period 1990-2013. Both the drivers of the ICF and its impact on regional public investment...

The paper’s aim is to link two different issues: equalization and fiscal competition. In the model there are two regions: the first one has rich citizens and the other one has poor citizens. Regional representatives in a federal Council must decide on the introduction of an equalization...

Can one come up with the ‘hard science’ to show that part of the enviable ‘quality of life’ in certain provinces in Canada has to do with the differential ‘purchasing power’ of their residents? Although the mean level of earnings/income per annum is lower/higher in certain provinces...

The focus of this study is on black markets which provide an important segment of the parallel economy. These markets operate in disequilibrium,search and information costs become very important.Trafficking in drugs taken as case, to explore both theoretically and empirically. The problem,...

This paper describes institutions of direct democracy between 1997 and 2003 in 26 Swiss cantons (states), specifically the statutory initiative and referendum, the constitutional initiative, and the fiscal referendum. In particular, it discusses their applications, but also the legal...