This paper evaluates the trade-off between the advantages of risk sharing and the perils of common pool problems in federal fiscal arrangements. Under the assumption of asymmetric information we evaluate two alternative regimes of intergovernmental transfers. In one regime, the central...

The traditional principal-agent model assumes that the principal offers an exclusive contract to the agent. This paper shows that the standard results are not robust to the introduction of additional contracting opportunities for the agent. We analyze equilibria of an extended game with the...

Federalism in general and fiscal federalism in particular are crucial axes of Argentina’s history, of Argentina’s current situation, and of Argentina’s possible futures. This paper provides a tour of the recent history of fiscal federalism in Argentina, and an overview of its current...

This paper links the theory of interest groups influence over the legislature with that of congressional control over the judiciary. We develop a model in which (i) Court’s rulings can be reversed by Congress, and (ii) an Interest Group is privately informed about the realization of a variable...

In this paper we investigate the logic and the workings of fiscal rules, with focus on rules for subnational governments. We argue against a simplistic view that sees the writing of numerical limits on fiscal variables as the solution to fundamental fiscal problems. We suggest that international...

The capacity to sustain policies over time and the capacity to adjust policies in the face of changing circumstances are two desirable properties of policymaking systems. The veto player approach has suggested that polities with more veto players will have the capacity to sustain policies at the...