Federal fiscal arrangements are argued to give rise to tacit collusion among competing Leviathans (Brennan and Buchanan, The Power to Tax, CUP, 1980). Though frequently encountered in academic and policy discussions, the cartelization hypothesis has rarely been scrutinized formally. This paper...

Am Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts existieren in Europa mehrere Spielarten eines föderalen Staatsaufbaus. Im Zuge der europäischen Integration ist ein Spannungsfeld zwischen der Wahrnehmung von Aufgaben auf der europäischen und der nationalen Ebene entstanden. Die Analyse der verschiedenen...

The existing theoretical literature on fiscal competition has to a large extent ignored the role of government debt as a determinant of taxes and productive public spending. We develop a simple model of fiscal competition with government borrowing. If a default on government debt is no option,...

Theories of competitive federalism generally focus on exit as the principal mechanism for making governments responsive to the interests of those who are subject to their powers. This paper draws attention to the necessity to specify more clearly the meaning of “exit” in light of the fact...