A multi-jurisdictional system is thought to improve, through yardstick competition, accountability. At the same time equalization programs, a common feature of multijurisdictional systems, are thought to be a prerequisite for both efficiency of the internal market and the equity objective of the...

Previous research has shown that if countries "merge", (i.e. move to centralized policy choices) the effect is to reduce lobbying. However empirical evidence suggests that this is not always the case. This paper attempts to explain the empirical evidence in a two-jurisdiction political economy...

Recent empirical literature has shown that the determination of intergovernmental grants is highly influenced by the political bargaining power of the recipient states. In these models federal politicians are assumed to buy the support of state voters, state politicians and state interest groups...

All rulers face political competition, both from rivals within their state, and from other states to which their subjects may exit. In a simple model, both kinds of competition are substitutes. Internal competition (democracy) benefits citizens by allowing them to replace rent-seeking rulers....

The political blessings of federalism are the core of our discussion. These benefits are operationalized as the decrease in the number of outvoted in a federal system with majority voting as an important source of regime satisfaction. The approach originates from the work of Roland Pennock who...

In this paper we investigate the role of judicial control of lobbying activities in an endogenous policy framework, focusing on two dimensions of quality of the judiciary, namely efficiency and integrity. We present a multi-layer lobbying model where a self-interested group is allowed to inuence...

Does fiscal decentralization in a politically decentralized less developed country help strengthen democratic institutions at the grass root level? And is the impact of such decentralization on local politics important in determining local development? Our study on Indonesia suggests that fiscal...

The aim of the paper is to analyze a model of local public good provision with positive interjurisdictional spillovers comparing decentralized and centralized system. As in the recent Second Generation Theory (SGT) of fiscal federalism (Seabright 1996; Lockwood 2002, 2006; Besley and Coate 2003; Weingast...