Which government functions should be decentralized (resp. centralized) once lobbying behavior is taken into account? We find that the answer largely depends on how the interests of the regional lobbies are positioned with respect to the function to be decentralized (resp. centralized). When...

We introduce persuasive advertising in a duopoly market of di⁄erentiated harmful goods, where rms compete on prices and advertising. Since advertising arti cially in ates consumers demand, there is over-consumption of sin goods. We rst show how introducing an excise tax increases consumers...

We study lobbying behavior by firms in a two-region economy, with either centralized or decentralized provision of profit-enhancing local public goods. Firms compete either in the market, lobbying for public good provision once entered in a market, or for the market, lobbying to gain ccess to...

We study lobbying behavior by firms in a two-region economy, with either centralized or decentralized provision of profit-enhancing local public goods. Firms compete either in the market, lobbying for public good provision once entered in a market, or for the market, lobbying to gain ccess to...

We examine policies directed at regulating tobacco consumption through three types of instruments: (i) an excise tax hindering consumption by increasing the price of cigarettes, (ii) prevention programs helping consumers to make choices that are more time consistent when trading-off the current...

For almost two decades, starting from the early ‘90s, Italy experienced the strongest wave of decentralization reforms in its post II World War history. The causes were both economic and political. Yet, in recent years, again economic and political causes seem to call for opposite reforms....

This paper investigates the economic consequences of workplace accidents in the British labour market. For the empirical analysis, I use data on employment and earnings from the British Household Panel Survey and exploit fixed effects estimators to control for time-invariant unobserved...