This paper discusses the smallness of subsidiary jurisdictions as a third dimension of centrality, besides vertical centrality and fragmentation (horizontal centrality). A panel analysis concerning all 26 Swiss cantons (from 1990 to 2003) shows that public expenditure per-capita increases with...

In this paper incumbency effects in Federal Elections and Mayoral Elections in Germany are estimated using a quasi-experimental design which allows for causal inference under a set of rather mild assumptions. Relying on nonparametric and parametric estimation procedures and exploiting a recently...

This paper, written for a Conference on Multi-Tiered Marriage, explores what the State role in regulating marriage is, and should be, given the growing set of alternative marriage options, and the greater decentralization of marriage regulation in the United States. The paper considers private...

There has long been conflict over the relationship between the states and the federal system vis-a-vis the family. The traditional account of domestic relations describes family law as the exclusive domain of the states, and federal courts have credited this account in the "domestic relations...

Voters dealing with jurisdictional merger decisions face a trade-off between economies of scale and preference costs. Larger jurisdictions may offer cost advantages, yet the downside is that policies in larger units may be less aligned to voter preferences. Our study is the first to provide...

This paper overviews theoretical and empirical contributions that study political borders from an economic perspective. It reviews theories of the number and size of nations focused on the trade-off between economies of scale in public-good provision and heterogeneity of preferences over public...