In this article, Trevor Tombe examines the sustainability of Canada's public debt in the face of steadily rising provincial debt, a severe economic shock from COVID-19, and mounting health-care costs associated with an aging population. He finds that while the federal debt is solidly...

This research is based on theories of federalized party systems, second-order elections and nationalization of party system comparing long-established democratic federations in terms of actual autonomy of their subnational party systems. The study shows that despite obvious prerequisites for...

This paper derives an efficient intergovernmental transfer system within tax competition settings under the endogenization of the number of regions that engage in tax competition. In our theoretical model, two externalities arise. These include fiscal externalities and the externalities...

Response to Stewart E. Sterk & Michael C. Pollack, A Knock on Knick‘s Revival of Federal Takings Litigation.As Professors Sterk and Pollack noted, “many have cheered” the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Knick v. Township of Scott that overruled the second prong of Williamson...

James Buchanan, one of the founders of public choice theory and constitutional economics, began his career studying fiscal federalism in the doctoral program at the University of Chicago. This paper explores Buchanan’s early interest in Australian experiences with federation and...

In an economy with both inter- and intra-region inequality and inconsistency between the objectives of local and central governments, this paper studies optimal non-linear federal (central) income tax under non-linear regional income taxes. Starting with a benchmark model without labor mobility,...