Today efficient states can be represented as sovereign authorities governing successful economies that provide high, stable and rising standards of welfare for their citizens. Such states emerged slowly and painfully over centuries of geopolitical rivalry and conflict among aristocracies for...

This paper proposes a model that links households and firms, as usual, by markets forfactors and goods and, additionally, by a banking sector that channels households’funds to firms and eliminates idiosyncratic risk. In equilibrium, agency costs and taxbenefits of corporate debt are equalizing...

Der Artikel behandelt den Zusammenhang zwischen politökonomischenEntwicklungen, Staatsfinanzen und öffentlichen Leistungen. In Bezug auf öffentlicheDienstleistungen werden insbesondere Veränderungen der lokalen governancediskutiert. Dabei wird der generelle Zusammenhang zwischen...