This paper analyses whether the different powers and resources at the disposal of local and regional governments across Europe deliver greater satisfaction with political institutions and lead to greater personal happiness. The analysis uses microdata from the four available waves of the...

The objective of this study is to investigate the fiscal capacity of the Brazilian states in the light of estimates of their indices of Autonomy, adopting as timeframe analysis the period following approval of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, passed in the year 2000. The text provides a brief...

This article aims to investigate the origin of unbalances and tensions between central and subnational governments concerned to the allocation of resources and decentralization of public policies. One argue that Brazilian federalism in recent years (2000-2012) has establishing a high level of...

In the present paper we analyse for the first time as far as we know, the ancient Greek regional proto-federations, of free-democratic city-states. We examine their political institutions and policies, like common defense and external policy, military organization, representative federal bodies...

The paper compares decision-making on the centralisation of public goods provision in the presence of regional externalities under representative and direct democratic institutions. A model with two regions, two public goods and regional spillovers is developed in which uncertainty over the true...

For decades, rapid urban expansion has led to concerns over the loss of cultivated land in rural China. This contrasts sharply with another salient feature of the Chinese land policy reform landscape that has gone on largely unnoticed - the addition of newly cultivated land in China through land...

This paper contributes to an agenda that views the effects of policies and institutional reforms as dependent on the structure of political incentives for national and subnational political actors. The paper studies political incentive structures at the subnational level and the mechanisms...

The main subject of this study is to propose an agenda to understand capabilities and limitations of state governments in Brazilian federalism. Governance capabilities, named here as economic-fiscal and political-institutional capabilities, are brought to the focus of the analysis. It is well...

The article analyses the incentive effects of the German system of intergovernmental grants.

While gerrymandering in developing countries is often pushed by local authorities to secure political advantages, fiscal grants systems under decentralization may also have result in the same. We investigate this issue to identify the correlates of the growth in the number of cities in the...