IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/qjecon/v112y1997i4p1027-1056..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the Number and Size of Nations

Author

Listed:
  • Alberto Alesina
  • Enrico Spolaore

Abstract

This paper studies the equilibrium determination of the number of countries in different political regimes, and in different economic environments, with more or less economic integration. We focus on the trade-off between the benefits of large jurisdictions and the costs of heterogeneity of large and diverse populations. Our model implies that (i) democratization leads to secessions; (ii) in equilibrium one generally observes an inefficiently large number of countries; (iii) the equilibrium number of countries is increasing in the amount of economic integration.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Alesina & Enrico Spolaore, 1997. "On the Number and Size of Nations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1027-1056.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:112:y:1997:i:4:p:1027-1056.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1162/003355300555411
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    2. DREZE, Jacques, 1993. "Regions of Europe," LIDAM Reprints CORE 1068, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    3. Patrick Bolton & Gérard Roland, 1997. "The Breakup of Nations: A Political Economy Analysis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1057-1090.
    4. Brennan,Geoffrey & Buchanan,James M., 2006. "The Power to Tax," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521027922, September.
    5. Easterly, William & Rebelo, Sergio, 1993. "Fiscal policy and economic growth: An empirical investigation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 417-458, December.
    6. Steven C. Salop, 1979. "Monopolistic Competition with Outside Goods," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 141-156, Spring.
    7. Krugman, Paul, 1991. "Increasing Returns and Economic Geography," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 483-499, June.
    8. Buchanan, James M & Faith, Roger L, 1987. "Secession and the Limits of Taxation: Toward a Theory of Internal Exit," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 1023-1031, December.
    9. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, April.
    10. Alessandra Casella & Jonathan S. Feinstein, 1990. "Public Goods in Trade: On the Formation of Markets and Political Jurisdictions," NBER Working Papers 3554, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Epple, Dennis & Romer, Thomas, 1991. "Mobility and Redistribution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(4), pages 828-858, August.
    12. Alesina, Alberto & Perotti, Roberto & Spolaore, Enrico, 1995. "Togetheror separately? Issues on the costs and benefits of political and fiscal unions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 751-758, April.
    13. Friedman, David, 1977. "A Theory of the Size and Shape of Nations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(1), pages 59-77, February.
    14. Glaeser, E.L. & Ades, A.F., 1993. "Trade and Circuses: Explaining Urban Giants," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1646, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    15. Casella, Alessandra, 1992. "On Markets and Clubs: Economic and Political Integration of Regions with Unequal Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(2), pages 115-121, May.
    16. DREZE , Jacques H., 1993. "Regions of Europe : A Feasible Status, to be discussed," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 1993037, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    17. Alesina, Alberto & Perotti, Roberto & Spolaore, Enrico, 1995. "Togetheror separately? Issues on the costs and benefits of political and fiscal unions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 751-758, April.
    18. Roland Benabou, 1993. "Workings of a City: Location, Education, and Production," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 619-652.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bolton, Patrick & Roland, Gerard & Spolaore, Enrico, 1996. "Economic theories of the break-up and integration of nations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 697-705, April.
    2. Libman, Alexander Mikhailovich, 2009. "Эндогенные Границы И Распределение Власти В Федерациях И Международных Сообществах [ENDOGENOUS BOUNDARIES AND DISTRIBUTION OF POWER In the Federation]," MPRA Paper 16473, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Michel Le Breton & Shlomo Weber, 2003. "The Art of Making Everybody Happy: How to Prevent a Secession," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 50(3), pages 1-4.
    4. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    5. Alesina, Alberto & Spolaore, Enrico, 2005. "War, peace, and the size of countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(7), pages 1333-1354, July.
    6. Alberto Alesina & Enrico Spolaore, 1996. "International Conflict, Defense Spending and the Size of Countries," NBER Working Papers 5694, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Alesina, Alberto & Spolaore, Enrico, 2006. "Conflict, defense spending, and the number of nations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 91-120, January.
    8. Bordignon, Massimo & Brusco, Sandro, 2001. "Optimal secession rules," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 1811-1834, December.
    9. Alberto Alesina & Eliana La Ferrara, 2003. "Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2028, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    10. Pietri, Antoine & Tazdaït, Tarik & Vahabi, Mehrdad, 2013. "Empire-building and Price Competition," MPRA Paper 63486, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Sep 2014.
    11. Hausken, Kjell & Knutsen, John F., 2010. "An enabling mechanism for the creation, adjustment, and dissolution of states and governmental units," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 4, pages 1-38.
    12. Federico Etro, 2003. "Globalization and Political Geography," CESifo Working Paper Series 986, CESifo.
    13. Enrico Spolaore & Alberto Alesina & Romain Wacziarg, 2000. "Economic Integration and Political Disintegration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1276-1296, December.
    14. Blankart Charles B. & Koester Gerrit B., 2007. "Theoretischer und empirischer wissenschaftlicher Fortschritt / Theoretical and empirical scientific progress: Eine kritische Analyse des Buches von Alesina und Spolaore: „The Size of Nations“ / A crit," ORDO. Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 58(1), pages 167-180, January.
    15. Kjell Hausken & John F. Knutsen, 2002. "The Birth, Adjustment and Death of States," Public Economics 0205004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Rhea Molato, 2015. "Public Debt and the Threat of Secession," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2015-04, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    17. Mr. Michel Le Breton & Mr. Shlomo Weber, 2001. "The Art of Making Everybody Happy: How to Prevent a Secession," IMF Working Papers 2001/176, International Monetary Fund.
    18. Floriana Cerniglia; Riccarda Longaretti; Alberto Zanardi, 2020. "The Emergence of Asymmetric Decentralization: Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces," CRANEC - Working Papers del Centro di Ricerche in Analisi economica e sviluppo economico internazionale crn2001, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Centro di Ricerche in Analisi economica e sviluppo economico internazionale (CRANEC).
    19. Olofsgard, Anders, 2003. "Incentives for secession in the presence of mobile ethnic groups," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 2105-2128, September.
    20. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 2002. "It´s Not Factor Accumulation: Stylized Facts and Growth Models," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Norman Loayza & Raimundo Soto & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Editor) (ed.),Economic Growth: Sources, Trends, and Cycles, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 3, pages 061-114, Central Bank of Chile.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:112:y:1997:i:4:p:1027-1056.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/qje .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.