In this paper we introduce flexible majority decision rules where the size of the majority depends on the proposal made by the agenda setter. Flexible majority rules can mitigate the disadvantages of democracies in the provision of public projects. In many cases, the combination of the...

How does an increase in group size affect individual welfare in the presence of Olson's group size paradox? Under the standard approaches to modeling the group size paradox, individual welfare will decrease as the size of the group increases. However, this may not be true if we apply the group...

We model the trade-off between centralized and decentralized decision making over the provision of local public goods. Centralized decisions are made in a legislature of locally elected representatives, and this creates a conflict of interest between citizens in different jurisdictions. The...