This paper develops a simple two-period model of public good provision within a federation. A national public good is provided to both states by the federal government, while a local public good is supplied by each state government. The federal government levies a proportional income tax, and in...

Citizens with heterogeneous tastes delegate to policy makers the authority to choose public policies. They may try to influence legislators in various ways. In this paper we assume that monetary lobbying and direct threats are the only instruments private individuals can use to influence the...

Policy makers make policy decisions, which affect the utility of private citizens. The traditional explanation for government intervention in the economy is the existence of market failure. Nevertheless, despite public policy interventions, the economy may fail to reach the efficient frontier....

Empirical research on the geographic distribution of US federal spending shows that small states receive disproportionately more dollars per capita. This evidence, often regarded as the consequence of Senate malapportionment, in reality con‡ates the effects of state population size with that...

This paper studies why illegal immigration is widespread. We develop a political agency model in which a politician decides on an immigration target and its enforcement, facing uncertainty on the supply of migrants. Illegal immigration can arise for two reasons: the policy maker may be unable to...

This paper tests various hypotheses about distributive politics by studying the distribution of federal spending across U.S. states over the period 1978-2002. We improve on previous work by using survey data to measure the share of voters in each state that are Democrats, Republicans, and...

We analyze the relationship between senate malapportionment and the allocation of the US federal budget to the states during the period 1978-2002. A substantial literature originating from the influential paper by ?) finds that small and overrepresented states get significantly larger shares of...

This paper studies the impact of the competition between lobbies and voters on policy outcomes under alternative legislative procedures. Lobbies and citizens have opposing interests in a public policy and offer money and votes, respectively, to legislators to obtain their preferred policy....

This paper provides new evidence on the determinants of the US federal budget allocation to the states. Departing from the existing literature that gives prominence to Congress, we carry on an empirical investigation on the impact of Presidents during the period 1982-2000. Our findings suggest...

We analyze the relationship between senate malapportionment and the allocation of the US federal budget to the states during the period 1978-2002. A substantial literature originating from the influential paper by Atlas et al. (1995) finds that small and overrepresented states get significantly...