This paper empirically investigates the underlying determinants of expenditure decentralization, based on the predictions of a new political economy model of partial decentralization. The analysis is based on an agency model, in which two levels of government are involved in the provision of a...

Although regional resources have been shown to influence secessionist conflicts in developing countries, their effect in established democracies has largely been neglected. We integrate regional resource value and inter-regional transfers in a model on the optimal size of nations, and show that...

Many countries have adopted decentralization policies in order to strengthen democratic governance. Nevertheless, empirical literature on whether decentralization actually strengthens democratic governance is relatively limited when compared to empirical literature on the impact of...

While much empirical research has been done on the labor market consequences of unemployment benefits, there is remarkably little evidence on the forces determining benefits. The paper presents a simple model where workers desire insurance against the possibility of unemployment and unemployment...

While much empirical research has been done on the labor market consequences of unemployment benefits, there is remarkably little evidence on the forces determining benefits. The paper presents a simple model where workers desire insurance against the possibility of unemployment and unemployment...

Fiscal decentralization is high on the agenda in policy fora. This paper empirically investigates the underlying causes of fiscal decentralization, based on the predictions of a simple political economy model. We argue that the likeliness that a central government engages in devolution of powers...

Inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) is promoted as a way in which small, fiscally weak munic-ipalities can cope with intensified interregional competition and demographic change. We pro-vide first evidence on citizens' support for IMC using survey data from rural Germany. We cover different fields...

We investigate whether politicians award intergovernmental grants to core supporters. Our new dataset contains information on discretionary project grants from a German state government to municipalities over the period 2008-2011. The results show that discretionary grants were awarded to...