Environmental policy, focusing on the control of pollution and on over-exploitation, easily overlooks the extensive range of interconnections between economic activities and natural systems. In this timely book, a number of specialists examine how crucial aspects of complex environmental...

This major Handbook addresses fiscal relations between different levels of government under the general rubric of ‘fiscal federalism’, providing a review of the latest literature as well as an invaluable guide for practitioners and policy makers seeking informed policy options. The...

The competition that permeates the public sector acts as a force to discipline public sector actors. But it also serves to build links between the volume of goods and services supplied by public bodies and the prices that citizens must pay for them. Globalization, by permitting a greater...

The benefits and costs usually ascribed to federalism are benefits and costs of decentralization; they are, therefore, present in unitary states that are in fact all decentralized. The benefits and costs specific to federalism pertain to ownership rights in constitutional powers. Federalism is...

I have tried to develop a simple point, namely that without trust, governing is more difficult, because it requires greater use of force. I have suggested that in a heterogeneous federal state the conditions for trust accumulation are more difficult to devise with regard to the national...

The traditional school of economic policy analysis predicts that globalisation will give rise to predatory competition between the governments of the European nation states. The consequence is anticipated to be a marked reduction in, if not the destruction of, the benevolent Welfare State. The...