This paper proposes a new framework for studying federal mandates regarding public policies in areas such as environmental quality, public health, highway safety, and the provision of local public goods. Voters have single-peaked preferences along a single policy dimension. There are two levels...

The paper analyzes tactical transfers in a federal setting, investigating the drivers of tactical redistribution when various levels of government coexist. As in Dixit & Londregan (1996), parties set down a tactical transfers schedule in order to maximize the share of votes obtained in the...

Critical-level (CL) utilitarianism with both fixed and variable critical levels is applied to the problem of redistribution in a federation with free mobility. We are interested in intra-regional inequality when redistribution policies are organized decentrally in a federation. Due to free...