The purpose of the paper is to advocate that constitutions should be established through a contractarian process, rather than through conventions. To achieve it, they are studied from the perspective of the concept of common knowledge. The authors refer to its political philosophy and game...

The article provides an economic interpretation of Kelsen's theory of decentralized governments. It helps to distinguish different forms of federalism and in particular the corresponding conflicts of principalship inside the governmental structure. The model is applied to the early American...