When a group of politicians enters office, there is no choice: the inherited commitments of past government must be accepted as givens. The legacy that they inherit is carried forward by institutional commitments grounded in laws, organizations and budgets that are more important than the...

This note seeks to steer a path between the scylla of dogmatic faith that rational choice models can explain all aspects of human behavior, borrowed from economists such as Gary Becker, and the charybdis of some recent political science work that argues the view that rational choice `has no...

The paper presents a multi-agent model simulating a two-level public decision game in which politicians, voters and interest groups interact. The objective is to model the political market for influence at the domestic level and at the international level, and to assess how new consultation...

Contribution to a series of recollections and reflections on professional experiences of distinguished economists. Article originally published in vol. 39 n. 159 of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review.

The article summarises the evolution of the Italian school of public finance, highlighting those themes that most attracted James Buchanan's interest. It considers such topics as the operations of the fiscal authorities, the Leviatan monopolist, financial delusion, public debt theory, and the...

Contribution to a series of recollections and reflections on professional experiences of distinguished economists. Article originally published in vol. 39 n. 159 of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review.

We develop a public choice model of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in which credit and conditionality are simultaneously determined by the demand for, and supply of, IMF credit. A graphical analysis illustrates the comparative statics in response to various shocks. We apply the model to...

This paper mainly aims to clarify the ways in which fiscal policy measures can influence the economy, with reference to two popular theories: rational expectation and public choice. These theories present particular issues, born on the Keynesian theory background and explain the cause and effect...

The article deals with the evolution of approaches in modern economic theory to the problem of “failures of the state”. This approach, which has developed in opposition to concepts of “market failure”, can be seen as a search for a new strategy of political and economic analysis of...

Based on some national and international studies and researches, this article aims to demonstrate that the level of social polarisation in Romania is a result of political will. Focusing on the study of the domestic tax policy, the authors asks a few questions, the answer of which may lead to...