In this paper we study the incentives for basic-research investments by governments in a globalized world. For this purpose, we develop a two-country Schumpeterian growth model in which each country chooses its basic-research investments. We find that a country's basic-research investments...

In this paper we examine how individuals should be treated with respect to taxes, subsidies and agenda setting in constitutions in order to obtain efficient allocations of public goods and to limit tax distortions. We show that if public goods are socially desirable, the simple majority rule as...

In this paper we introduce flexible majority decision rules where the size of the majority depends on the proposal made by the agenda setter. Flexible majority rules can mitigate the disadvantages of democracies in the provision of public projects. In many cases, the combination of the...