Regional flows of federal taxes and transfers within the United States and Canada are used to analyse long-term fiscal flows (the redistributive element) and short-term responses to regional business cycles (the stabilization element). In the United States, long-run flows amount to 22 cents in...

This paper uses household data from India to examine the economic and social status of village politicians, and how individual and village characteristics affect politician behaviour while in office. Education increases the chances of selection to public office and reduces the odds that a...

The paper examines the possible effects of introducing a large-scale welfare reform in Sweden, namely, the introduction of comprehensive welfare accounts. Under this policy, individuals make mandatory contributions to accounts, which they can top up with voluntary contributions. In return,...

It has been argued that the public sector is an insurance against otherwise uninsurable risks. If that is the case, it is reasonable to expect the public sector to be larger in regions where the private labour-market is risky. Using data from Swedish municipalities, this paper reports that...

Fiscal reform is central to the process of transforming a Soviet-type economy to a market economy, for with the emergence of a significant private sector, the boundaries between the public and private sectors needs to be more sharply drawn. The paper draws lessons from the experience of the...

A recent literature has emerged providing compelling evidence that a major shift in the organization of the developed economies has been taking place: away from what has been characterized as the <I>managed economy</I> towards the <I>entrepreneurial economy</I>. In particular, the empirical evidence provides...</i></i>

The classical liberal character of economics emerged in the eighteenth century, notably with Adam Smith’s view that politics is prone to an under-appreciation the relative virtues of natural liberty. Smith centered political economy on the presumption of liberty. The Journal of Economic...

Donald Wittman's "Why Democracies Produce Efficient Results," argues that the "markets work, democracy fails" outlook typical of many economists rests on bad economics. After summarizing Wittman's main arguments, I maintain that Wittman too hastily accepts the assumption of voter rationality....

Agricultural economists, going back to the Roosevelt New Deal era, have a long legacy of supporting government intervention in the farm sector. Although policy economists have increased criticism of farm programs since World War II—particularly price support programs—there remains...

Some numbers in the political sphere seem to be chosen rather arbitrarily. One example might be the rule set out by the Second Senate of the German Federal Constitutional Court in 1995 that the overall tax load on assets must be limited to 50% of the yield on those assets. This rule was...