We compare centralized and decentralized policy making in a federation in which policy heterogeneity is inherently costly and preferences vary across jurisdictions: all jurisdictions agree that some harmonization is desirable but no one agree on the direction of harmonization. This type of...

We use Finnish local election voting data to analyze whether voters value local representation and act strategically to guarantee it. To identify such preferences and behavior, we exploit municipal mergers as natural experiments, which increase the number of candidates and parties available to...

Many scholars argue that "retrospective voting" is a powerful information shortcut that offsets widespread voter ignorance. Even relatively ignorant voters, it is claimed, can punish incumbents for bad performance and reward them if things go well. But if voters' understanding of which officials...

Does electoral fraud affect development? In a weak institutional environment the answer is not obvious. This paper demonstrates that electoral fraud can lower development and this effect is mediated through the partisan control of electoral institutions and the resultant ability of the incumbent...

This article addresses the extent to which differences in judicial independence across US states influences economic freedom using the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of North America index. Overall, the results suggest that as judicial independence increases within a state’s court of...

This articles explores the new special solicitude rule for states' standing when suing federal agencies, as set forth by the Supreme Court in its recent landmark decision on global warming and the regulation of greenhouse gases. It also discusses the implications of the Court's new distinction,...

This paper examines the effect of immigration on the extent of income redistribution via majority voting on the income tax. The tax outcome depends on the size of the native majority and the initial amount of redistribution in the economy, which in turn determines the skill composition of...

People not only obtain utility from actual outcomes but also from the conditions which lead to these outcomes. The paper proposes an economic concept of this notion of procedural utility. Preferences beyond outcome can be manifold. We distinguish procedural utility people get from institutions...

Regulatory outcomes can vary substantially from one US state to the next. For example, at the end of 2002 regulated prices for access to the local loops of incumbent telephone networks varied from $2.79 per month in downtown Chicago, IL to $7.70 in Manhattan, NY to $12.14 in Houston, TX....

I argued that California's school-finance decision, Serrano v. Priest, which required equalized school spending, caused Proposition 13, which decimated property taxes in 1978. Kirk Stark and Jonathan Zasloff offer evidence to the contrary in a paper published in 50 UCLA Law Rev. 801 (2003). They...