The objective of the paper is to formulate a hypothesis that can help explain the different patterns of environmental governance in three countries: Canada and the United States (both federal states) and Italy (a decentralized unitary state). To that effect, we will make use of what is a robust...

The traditional school of economic policy analysis predicts that globalisation will give rise to predatory competition between the governments of the European nation states. The consequence is anticipated to be a marked reduction in, if not the destruction of, the benevolent Welfare State. The...

Albert Breton and Pierre Salmon argue that the effects of constitutional rules depend on the nature of political competition and on some meta-rules that contain procedures regulating the application and the modification of constitutional rules. They outline two models of competition - electoral...

Consumers are indifferent about the provenance of the goods and services they consume. Given their information, income, and preferences, they choose from the lowest price source--with price defined to include transaction and deadweight costs. There are many supply sources: families, charitable...

The competition that permeates the public sector acts as a force to discipline public sector actors. But it also serves to build links between the volume of goods and services supplied by public bodies and the prices that citizens must pay for them. Globalization, by permitting a greater...