This paper revisits the soft budget constraint problem arising in decentralised countries. Capturing the specific dynamics of political decision making in a federation, new light is shed on the incentives at work when lower-level (state) governments overborrow and are bailed out by the federal...

Preface / Joseba Agirreazkuenaga -- Small states in a time of big crises: Nevada, Ireland, and the Basque autonomous community -- During the Great recession / Elliott Parker -- Resilience of cooperatives in times of crisis : are mondragon's strategies in coping with crisis still a competitive...