The institutions of federal fiscal-policy making seem incapable of confronting the central domestic issues of the day. This paper presents a model of congressional decision-making in which legislators' incentives are contrary to fiscal efficiency. In such an environment, a "strong" president may...

The structure of local taxation is an important determinant of the fiscal performance of decentralized public economies. In contrast to our understanding of local government spending, however, we know surprisingly little about how cities and states set taxes. This study specifies and estimates a...

The federalist fiscal structure of the United States has been evolving steadily towards the centralization of the financing of government services and transfers. Revenues are raised centrally and then transferred, via grants-in-aid, to state and local governments. This paper seeks to explain...

In this paper, we study the question whether suburbs should help finance the core public services of their central cities. We review three arguments that have been offered in favor of suburbs’ fiscal assistance to their central cities. First, the central city provides public services that...