This paper reviews a considerable number of cases concerning the application of State aid rules to the EU banking sector. The relevance of the financial crisis which hit the lending industry in the '90s determined the Commission to a significant number of State aid reviews of national measures...

Directly subsidizing bank deposits increases franchise value and promotes prudent lending. Subsidization can be made budget-neutral for the regulator by requiring banks to make upfront payments equal to the capitalized value of future subsidies they stand to receive. While compensating the...

One of the principal determinants of an asset's return is its liquidity - the ease with which the asset can be bought and sold. Liquid assets yield a lower return than do otherwise comparable illiquid assets. This Article demonstrates that an income tax alters the tradeoff between asset...

We study the choice of club membership, when member-countries' national governments set their tax policies non-cooperatively. Federal policy (in the form of club membership) has a higher constitutional status than national policies (in the form of income tax rates). This allows federal policy to...

We derive median-voter results and study the shape of redistributional taxes when voters elect a candidate who imposes taxes to maximize own utility. Under general conditions, a median-productivity candidate is a Condorcet winner. The imposed tax function is nonlinear, may place high marginal...