The fiscal commons problem is one of the most prominent explanations of excessive spending and indebtedness in political economics. The more fragmented a government, the higher its spending, deficits and debt. In this paper we investigate to what extent this problem can be mitigated by different...

This paper is a case study about investor behaviour of the government of Berne on capital markets in the 18th century, focussing mainly on London. Economic theory about principal-agent problems and portfolio administration will be used to analyse quantitative and qualitative data from government...