We develop and test a theory of the rule of law and environmental policy formation. In our model an increase in the degree of rule of law has two opposing partial effects on environmental policy: first, a greater share of policy decisions are implemented according to law; second, industry...

Empirical evidence suggesting that a considerable amount of horizontal strategic interaction exists amongst governments is important in light of recent devolutionary trends of many important public programs. The empirical approach in these studies typically relies on estimating reaction...

We provide a theory of trade policy determination that incorporates the protectionist bias inherent in majoritarian systems, suggested by Grossman and Helpman (2005). The prediction that emerges is that in majoritarian systems, the majority party favors industries located disproportionately in...

This paper sheds new light on the determination of environmental tax policies in majoritarian federal electoral systems, such as the U.S., and derives implications for the environmental federalism debate on whether the national or local government should have authority over environmental taxes....

This paper provides new empirical evidence to the debate on the optimal locus of power over environmental policymaking in developing countries. The authors develop a simple lobby group model with mobile capital. The model predicts that a decentralized institutional structure leads to weaker...

This paper sheds new light on the determination of environmental policies in majoritarian federal electoral systems such as the U.S., and derives implications for the environmental federalism debate on whether the national or local government should have authority over environmental policies. In...

We suggest a novel perspective on the relationship between the stringency of environmental policies and foreign direct investment (FDI). We develop a political economy model with imperfect product market competition where local and foreign firms jointly lobby the local government for a favorable...