Canada spends more than Italy on health per capita and as a share of GDP and has a higher per capita GDP. Yet, life expectancy and infant mortality in Italy are better and have improved more over time. The implication is that the Italian health care system provides better value for money. We...

This paper contributes to the empirical literature on convergence by applying convergence model to components of government expenditures (by function) in EU15 during 1995-2010, using the data from United Nations Statistics Division. Moreover, we extend the traditional convergence model to allow...

The empirical evidence on the relationship between political decentralization and corruption is far from clear. We develope a model that analizes the relationship between decentralization and corruption and show how cost–benefit calculations can lead public administrations to tolerate a...

This paper examines whether the Internet has led to a shift from reliance on resource revenue towards progressive reliance on non-resource revenue, which is ultimately a sustainable source of public revenue. The analysis has been carried out using a sample of 99 countries, including both...

Paul A. Samuelson taught that every society has to choose between butter and guns. Individuals have to make the Gossen test of utility equivalence. The authors of the recent Mirrlees Review seem to believe that they can avoid this choice by considering taxation only. But how can one decide on...

Nach langwierigen Verhandlungen haben sich CDU/CSU und SPD auf einen Koalitionsvertrag geeinigt und eine gemeinsame Regierung gebildet. In diesem Beitrag wird analysiert, wie verschiedene Koalitionsaussagen der Parteien im Vorfeld der Bundestagswahl 2013 die Verteilung der Macht in der...

A Hobbesian society is modeled to study how the market emerges from violence. From a Cournot military contest for wealth, primitive markets emerge when Rousseau's Garden of Eden or an arms race is the equilibrium rather than war. Politically-dominated (e.g., socialist) or Smithian markets with a...