Economists generally assume that the state has sufffcient institutional capacityto support markets and levy taxes, assumptions which cannot be taken forgranted in many states, neither historcally nor in today’s developing world.Our paper develops a framework where "policy choices" in market...

The absence of state capacities to raise revenue and to supportmarkets is a key factor in explaining the persistence of weak states.This paper reports on an on-going project to investigate the incentiveto invest in such capacities. The paper sets out a simple analyticalstructure in which state...

The paper shows that interjurisdictional competition for mobile factors of production forces the government to raise the efficiency of the public sector and, thus, helps to tame Leviathan governments. However, this result is derived under some restrictive assumptions concerning the kind of tax...

Defining global public goods / Inge Kaul, Isabelle Grunberg, and Marc A. Stern -- Intergenerational public goods: strategies, efficiency, and institutions / Todd Sandler -- The political economy of international cooperation / Lisa L. Martin -- Equity in a global public goods framework / J. Mohan...

Does decentralization enhance service delivery and poverty reduction? Drawing on cutting edge research, expert contributors address this fundamental question facing policy-makers in developing as well as advanced countries. This timely book builds upon insights on the recent developments in the...