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...

Religious identity affects preferences and can consequently affect policy. We propose two mechanisms through which a ruler's religious identity can affect public good provision: i) greater provision of goods in regions where more subjects are the ruler's co-religionists, and ii) lower provision...

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 dealing with financing development addresses how public infrastructure can be paid for and managed in an environment where public resources are limited but the investment needs for these services are great. This is a characteristic that succinctly describes many of the emerging...

Using a large village survey conducted in 2002, this paper examines the relationship between local governance and public goods provision in rural China focusing on village- and county-levels. The main points of this paper are as follows. First, regarding to rural governance at the village level,...

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...

Uppsatsen dokumenterar den offentliga sektorns utveckling och inriktning. Det framgår att sektorn expanderat i stort sett oavbrutet under 1900-talet, från cirka 10 procent av BNP vid seklets början till 70 procent 1993. Trots en viss tillbakagång sedan 1993 har Sverige idag de högsta...

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...

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...

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...