In some countries the reform of public health care provision has been accompanied by a parallel process of devolution that has also entailed the organisation of health care becoming a regional competence. However, the application of fiscal federalism in the context of the provision of health...

The sixteen essays in this book were written to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of Richard Musgrave and to commemorate the tenth anniversary of CES, the Center for Economic Studies at the University of Munich. Musgrave is considered to be a founding father or modern public economics. He belongs...

For decades the rhetoric of federalism has been an important part of the debate over welfare reform. The alignments were predictable. Anti-big government conservatives argued for state and local control over welfare programs arrayed against New Deal liberals seeking federal funding and...

We show the existence of a twin peaks relation between trust and the size of the welfare state that stems from two opposing forces. Uncivic people support large welfare states because they expect to benefit from them without bearing their costs. But civic individuals support generous benefits...

The effect of generous welfare benefits on unemployment is highly contested. The dominant perspective contends that benefits provide disincentive to work, whereas others portray benefits as job-search subsidies that facilitate better job matches. Despite many studies of welfare benefits and...