A large literature on the ‘flypaper effect’ examines how federal grants to states at time period t affect state spending (or taxes) at time period t. We explore the fundamentally different question of how federal grants at time period t affect state tax policy in the future. Federal grants...

It is well established that geographic areas benefit, in terms of the share of government spending they capture, from having a legislator with longer tenure, holding constant the tenure of other legislators. However, the implications of this literature for how the total production of legislation...

We use public choice theory to explain the failure of FEMA and other governmental agencies to carry out effective disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The areas in which we focus are: (1) the tragedy of the anti-commons resulting from layered bureaucracy, (2) a type-two error policy...

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of international interventions through their impact on exchange rates. If a specific intervention actually increases (decreases) a country's economic and political stability, then its currency should appreciate (depreciate). Estimates suggest that...

The high rate of budget stabilization fund adoption during the 1980s is often attributed to the 1980–1982 recession. In this view, states adopted funds to prevent a recurrence of the fiscal crises experienced during that recession. An alternative hypothesis is that some funds adopted during...