Should a subset of member states of a federation be allowed to form a sub-union on some policy issue? When centralization is not politically feasible, allowing an enhanced cooperation agreement among a subset of countries permits the latter to gain benefits which would otherwise be lost....

We study lobbying behavior by firms in a two-region economy, with either centralized or decentralized provision of profit-enhancing local public goods. Firms compete either in the market, lobbying for public good provision once entered in a market, or for the market, lobbying to gain ccess to...

In this paper we propose a simple model of bailing out that closely describes the intergovernmental relationships between the Central government and the regional governments in the Italian public health care sector. The theoretical model suggests that bail out expectations by regions can be...

Der europäische Integrationsprozess wird gleich von mehreren Krisen erschüttert - der Euro-Schuldenkrise, der Flüchtlingsfrage und dem Brexit-Konflikt - , was eine umfassende Reform-Debatte ausgelöst hat. Bei dieser Debatte geht es sowohl um die Entwicklung der Institutionen der...