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...

A substantial and diverse literature in economics traces its intellectual roots to Charles Tiebout's 1956 article, "The Pure Theory of Local Expenditure." Its present recognition frequently attributed to originating the idea of "voting with your feet," however, contrasts sharply with its...

There is much evidence against the so-called too big to fail hypothesis in the case of bailouts to sub-national governments. We look at a model where districts of different size provide local public goods with positive spillovers. Matching grants of a central government can induce...

This chapter explores how infrastructure theory applies to the Internet and in particular the network neutrality debate. The chapter demonstrates how the infrastructure analysis, with its focus on demand-side issues and the function of commons management, reframes the network neutrality debate,...

This chapter considers the relationship between nondiscrimination rules and supply-side incentives to invest in infrastructure. We encountered the issue throughout chapter 6. This chapter frames and evaluates the oft -made claim that government-imposed commons management will significantly...

We develop a simple model of fiscal competition among ageing municipalities. When ageing advances, gerontocracies and social planners gradually substitute publicly provided goods aimed at the mobile young population for publicly provided goods for the elderly. This substitution process does not...

This study investigates the effects of introducing elections on public good expenditures, income distribution and land use in rural China. We collect a large and unique survey to document the history of political reforms and economic policies and exploit the staggered timing of the introduction...

Court decisions in the past twenty years such as Southern Burlington County NAACP v. Mount Laurel Associated, as well as recent legislation, have made exclusionary zoning laws based on race illegal and have limited, at least in many states, the legality of exclusionary zoning based on income....