This paper considers the decentralized funding of public universities in a federation when students and graduates are mobile. In particular, I discuss whether local governments should be given the right to differentiate tuition fees between in-state and out-of-state students. I develop a model...

Finnish municipalities enjoy ample fiscal autonomy and provide or arrange the provision of a large share of public services. In recent years, their spending and debt has been increasing steadily, especially because of population ageing and increases in the cost of health care and social...

When private goods are publicly provided at subsidized prices, government authorities have to determine the distribution of services on recipients. Such distributions are commonly based on legal regulations and professional guidelines. Thus governments are assumed to develop service standards...

This article analyzes the efficiency in the provision of child care services at the municipal level and identifies the main determinants of inefficiency. We use a unique data set on the local child care expenditures in the eastern German State of Saxony. The analysis is performed in two stages....

This paper considers the decentralized funding of public universities in a federation when students and graduates are mobile. In particular, I discuss whether local governments should be given the right to differentiate tuition fees between in-state and out-of-state students. I develop a model...

This article analyzes the efficiency in the provision of child care services at the municipal level and identifies the main determinants of inefficiency. We use a unique data set on the local child care expenditures in the eastern German State of Saxony. The analysis is performed in two stages....

I examine decentralization through the lens of the local dynamics that it unleashes. The national effects of decentralization are simply the sum of its local-level effects. Hence to understand decentralization we must first understand how local government works. This paper proposes a theory of...

We study the political economy of state limitations on the taxing powers of local governments, investigating the effects of such restriction on housing markets, community composition, and types of taxes and expenditures undertaken by local governments. We characterize equilibrium when voters...

This paper is based on the new institutional economic approach, which focuses on analysis between services features (asset specificity, outcome measurability) and their eligibility to contract out. This issue, which de facto constitutes one of the subsets of the "make or buy decision" issue, is...

We measure the performance of public spending in Italian regions regarding the provision of public services, by constructing a so-called total regional performance indicator for strategic sectors such as general administration, energy, water and sewage, solid waste, and transports for 2001. This...