We examine the incentives of regions in a country to unite or toseparate. We find that smaller regions have greater incentives tounite, relative to larger regions. We show, however, that on thewhole, majority voting on separation and union generates excessiveincentives to separate. This leads us...

Previous theoretical and empirical research has shown that policymakers have an incentive to centralize government activities in order to weaken the com-petitive pressure of fiscal federalism. We propose and test a positive model of fiscal federalism in which centralization is less likely to...

Previous theoretical and empirical research has shown that policymakers have an incentive to centralize government activities in order to weaken the competitive pressure of fiscal federalism. We propose and test a positive model of fiscal federalism in which centralization is less likely to...

Democratic direct voting on issues (in the form of referenda) suffers from the tyranny of the majority as well as potentially supporting extremist and populist positions. We state 4 fair voting principles for issue based voting, and show that current direct voting systems are not consistent with...

One of the newer suggestions for the design of public economic units refers to Functional Overlapping Competing Jurisdictions (FOCJs), which are instruments to shape cooperation of jurisdictions, e.g. municipalities.The study clarifies important types of FOCJ. It concentrates on FOCJs where the...

This paper studies constitutional restrictions on the tax base that protect future generations from expropriation and improve the optimality of investment in Intergenerational Public Goods (IPGs). The choice of the tax base matters because it affects how intergenerational (IG) spillovers are...

This paper studies the equilibrium size of countries. Individuals in smallcountries have greater influence over the nature of political decision mak-ing while individuals in large countries have the advantage of more publicgoods and lower tax rates. The model implies that (i) there exists...

This paper studies the equilibrium size of countries. Individuals in small countries have greater influence over the nature of political decision making while individuals in large countries have the advantage of more public goods and lower tax rates. The model implies that (i) there exists...