No consensus has yet emerged on whether fiscal decentralization facilitates or impedes the growth of the public sector. One explanation for this ambiguity in the literature is that the effect of fiscal decentralization on public sector size depends on the government’s ideology. This paper...

We evaluate how fiscal capacity and migration respond to the introduction of the individual income tax, drawing on new panel data on U.S. states from 1900 to 2010. We find that states that introduced the income tax experienced a 12 percent increase in total revenue per capita in the near term, a...

The objective of this discussion paper is to propose an asset-centred analytical framework for (i) mapping the most important redistributive policy tools that shape the distribution of income and income-generating assets (such as human capital and wealth, including land, industrial or financial...

Analyses of redistributive policies generally focus on income flows while subordinating most concerns to the overarching objective of promoting economic growth. This paper follows an alternative approach with the objective of proposing an asset-centred analytical framework, which encompasses...

Analyses of redistributive policies generally focus on income flows while subordinating most concerns to the overarching objective of promoting economic growth. This paper follows an alternative approach with the objective of proposing an asset-centred analytical framework, which encompasses...

I propose a multi-region fiscal bargaining model, where country border stability is determined by a trade-off between preference heterogeneity, income inequality and scale economies in the provision of public policy. I demonstrate how increasing preference heterogeneity can actually increase...

This paper investigates whether the presence of college increases house prices and the tax base. Colleges provide cultural and recreational amenities to the surrounding area but lifestyle choices of students may create negative externalities that depress property prices. In addition, colleges...

Overall, this paper presents a white swan that seems to confirm the hypothesis of Alesina / Tabellini / Campante (2008). Fiscal policy in many developing countries is procyclical. Specifically, the former may explain monetary policy failures associated with problems of political agency. And in...

Our hypothesis: during the twentieth century governments used state emergency measures to overcome its economic crisis. Such measures did better on the revenue in fiscal expenditures, thereby caused severe imbalances of public policy. It holds that in Colombia there has been no welfare state...

We develop a model with two provinces, producing two goods: one mobile and the other not. The mobile good is taxed according to the destination principle by the local government; it is also federally taxed. People decide to buy the good at the most advantageous price. Namely they can buy...