The paper reconsiders the theory of fiscal federalism in a framework inspired by property-rights theory. We set up a two-period model where on a first stage a region in a federation can expend value-enhancing investments into a public project. The project can be implemented on a second stage, and causes spilovers on other regions. Under centralized as well as decentralized governance, negotiations on the federal level facilitate the realization of the efficient policy. Still, non-contractibility of investments causes the overall outcomes to differ across regimes. If the region with access to the public project bears the entire implementation costs of its policies, underinvestment prevails and subsidiarity (centralized governance) is superior when spillovers are weak (strong). Conversely, if linear cost-sharing arrangements are feasible, decentralized authority often leads to a socially optimal outcome while centralized authority (with majority or unanimity rule) does not.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Bonn, Germany in its series Bonn Econ Discussion Papers with number
bgse5_2001.
Length: 25 Date of creation: Oct 2000 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:bon:bonedp:bgse5_2001
Contact details of provider: Postal: Bonn Graduate School of Economics, University of Bonn, Adenauerallee 24 - 26, 53113 Bonn, Germany Fax: +49 228 73 9221 Web page: http://www.bgse.uni-bonn.de/index.php?id=494
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Daniel Park).
Find related papers by JEL classification: D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights H70 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - General H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)