The economic literature has been investigating the positive relation between public infrastructure spending and the productivity of the private sector since Munnell (1992). We have introduced this relationship into a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model of the Quebec economy to...

The government of Quebec has launched a major public infrastructure spending program funded essentially by debt. This choice can have long term consequences on growth if the eviction effect is strong. In this paper, we use a recursive dynamic model of the Quebec economy to analyse alternative...

Fiscal decentralization is high on the agenda in policy fora. This paper empirically investigates the underlying causes of fiscal decentralization, based on the predictions of a simple political economy model. We argue that the likeliness that a central government engages in devolution of powers...

This paper empirically investigates the underlying causes of expenditure decentralization, based on the predictions of a new political economy model of partial fiscal decentralization. Under shared expenditure responsibility, the degree of decentralization is endogenous and depends on the...

En choisissant Le Québec économique 2009 comme titre, nous ouvrions volontairement la voie à une analyse en deux temps. D'une part, nous souhaitions évaluer l'économie québécoise en mesurant le chemin qu'elle a parcouru au cours des dernières décennies jusqu'à aujourd'hui. D'autre...

This paper sets out a simple dynamic probabilistic voting model in which a government allocates a fixed budget across electoral districts that differ in their loyalty to the ruling party. The model predicts that the geographic pattern of spending depends on the way the government balances...

While electoral accountability should be stronger when responsibilities are clearly assigned to one political office, the involvement of higher tiers of government is often associated with policies specifically designed to improve local accountability. This paper investigates the impact of...

This paper empirically investigates the underlying determinants of expenditure decentral- ization, based on the predictions of a new political economy model of partial decentralization. The analysis is based on an agency model, in which two levels of government are involved in the provision of a...

This document offers a synthesis of the papers presented at the Conference on the Econometrics of Education: Modeling Selectivity and Outcomes, held at CIRANO, April 26 and 27, 2002. The papers serve as a pretext to draw a non exhaustive survey of the state of research in the economics of...

The paper examines the evolution of the inequality of family income in Canada during the 1986-1996 period. Our main objective is to understand why overall market income inequality rose, while that of disposable income did not. To analyze this question, we use data from the Survey of Consumer...