The distinct characteristic in James Buchanan’s thinking about federalism in contrast to the traditional theory of fiscal federalism is his view about fiscal competition. In this paper, it is demonstrated that this thinking went through three stages. From the 1950s to the beginning of the...

The theoretical literature on the economics of fiscal federalism has identified several potential effects of government decentralization on economic growth. Much of the traditional literature focuses on the efficiency aspects of a decentralized provision of public services. However,...

The link between federalism and economic performance is still ambiguous. Aiming at clarification, we improve on a widespread shortcoming by measuring federalism not just by one variable but by various institutions that constitute it. To this end, Switzerland provides for a laboratory as its 26...

The link between federalism and economic performance is still ambiguous. Aiming at clarification, we improve on a widespread shortcoming by measuring federalism not just by one variable but by various institutions that constitute it. To this end, Switzerland provides for a laboratory as its 26...

This paper provides a challenging view to the tax harmonization issue. The literature often proposes tax harmonization to avoid free-riding behaviors in free-trade areas, and more particularly in monetary unions. Countries may decrease their tax rates in order to develop tax competitive...

This paper addresses the question of the likelihood of a race to the bottom in a monetary union, like the Euro-zone, that could result from tax competition between countries. This fear of a race to the bottom is used both in the economic literature and the political arena to promote tax...

The purpose of this paper is to use a game theoretical approach to analyze tax harmonization, or competition, in a monetary union, more specifically in Europe. Without harmonization, free-riding behaviors may appear, leading to a sub-optimal tax equilibrium. Tax competition may also create...

The tax auditing parameters have scarcely been analyzed by the literature as relevant policy-making instruments; however the enforcement strategies are crucial elements of the tax burden. In this paper we show that in a federal framework the tax auditing policies could represent additional tools...

We study the relationship between fiscal decentralization and economic growth for 23 OECD countries from 1975 to 2001 by using new panel data on sub-federal tax autonomy. While initial estimations suggest that fiscal decentralization causes lower growth rates, we find that this result is not...