Politicians within any given party generally exhibit a degree similarity in terms of (political) viewpoints. Moreover, they are often constrained to follow general party lines on certain policy issues. Finally, they may be more likely to mimic one another than politicians from another party....

Politicians within any given party generally exhibit a degree similarity in terms of (political) viewpoints. Moreover, they are often constrained to follow general party lines on certain policy issues. Finally, they may be more likely to mimic one another than politicians from another party....

The optimal degree of decentralization depends on the importance of inter-state externalities of local policies. We show that inter-state externalities are determined by the spatial distribution of interest groups within the country. Interest groups who have multi-state scope internalize...

We develop a new spatial inefficiency stochastic frontier model. Our spatial inefficiency stochastic frontier model meets the following conditions: (a) It can detect not only positive, but also negative spatial autocorrelation of inefficiency; (b)The inefficiency follows a truncated normal...

Municipal boundary reform (municipal amalgamation) has been done in many countries in recent years as the result of a push to enlarge the size and coverage of local government units, which in turn is driven mainly by the prospect of economies of scale. However, in a notable body of previous...

Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, ob eine Fusion der Länder Hamburg und Schleswig-Holstein zu einem Bundesland ökonomisch von Vorteil ist. Es wird gezeigt, dass generell die Größe von Ländern nicht positiv mit dem Pro-Kopf-Einkommen oder dem wirtschaftlichen Wachstum korreliert....

This paper deals with the problems encountered in defining and measuring the degree of fiscal decentralization. Drawing on a recent analytical framework of the OECD, different measures of fiscal autonomy and revenue decentralization are presented which consider tax-raising powers of sub-central...

Drawing on recent work on the creation and breakup of countries, this paper examines the impact of economic and political integration on the vertical government structure. It argues that by increasing the market size and the benefits from the decentralized provision of public goods, integration...

This paper examines the factors determining vertical government structures. An empirical analysis for a panel of OECD countries indicates that apart from preferences, economies of scale, and other factors, institutions explain cross-national differences in the degree of fiscal decentralization....

This paper investigates the long-term trend and the underlying determinants of public sector centralization in Germany from 1871 until today. The institutional and the quantitative review of the German history provides no conclusive evidence for a continuous process of government centralization...