Motivated by the recent experience in the Russian Federation, this paper examines the implications of imposing central control on the budgetary activities of a subnational government. In a highly stylised multi-task principal-agent model (Holmstrom and Milgrom (1991)), a central government...

Decentralisation of decision-making in active labour market policy makes it possible to use local information to the fullest, but may also impinge on the fulfilment of national objectives, as suggested by principal-agent theory. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of a Swedish...

In 1996 the United States revamped its welfare system by eliminating the entitlement to cash benefits under Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), and replacing it by Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). Federal financing was converted from open-ended matching grants to fixed...

This article has four objectives: to characterize briefly the literature on policy communities and policy networks; to provide a summary of, and to appraise critically, British contributions to the topic; to identify the problems with the concept; and to suggest future lines of development.