IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jpolec/v104y1996i5p979-1009.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Federal Fiscal Constitutions: Risk Sharing and Redistribution

Author

Listed:
  • Persson, Torsten
  • Tabellini, Guido

Abstract

This paper studies the political and economic determinants of regional public transfers. Specifically, it focuses on how such transfers are shaped by alternative fiscal constitutions, where a constitution is an allocation of fiscal instruments across different levels of governments plus a procedure for the collective choice of these instruments. Realistic restrictions on fiscal instruments introduce a trade-off between risk sharing and redistribution. Different constitutions produce very different results. In particular, a federal social insurance scheme, chosen by voting, provides overinsurance, whereas an intergovernmental transfer scheme, chosen by bargaining, provides underinsurance. Copyright 1996 by University of Chicago Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1996. "Federal Fiscal Constitutions: Risk Sharing and Redistribution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(5), pages 979-1009, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:104:y:1996:i:5:p:979-1009
    DOI: 10.1086/262049
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/262049
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers. See http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE for details.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/262049?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Inman, Robert P. & Rubinfeld, Daniel L., 1992. "Fiscal federalism in Europe : Lessons from the United States experience," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(2-3), pages 654-660, April.
    3. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1994. "Does centralization increase the size of government?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 765-773, April.
    4. Tabellini, Guido, 1991. "The Politics of Intergenerational Redistribution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(2), pages 335-357, April.
    5. Boadway, Robin, 1982. "On the Method of Taxation and the Provision of Local Public Goods: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(4), pages 846-851, September.
    6. Wright, Randall, 1986. "The redistributive roles of unemployment insurance and the dynamics of voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 377-399, December.
    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. 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.
    2. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "Political economics and macroeconomic policy," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 22, pages 1397-1482, Elsevier.
    3. Mark Gradstein, 2000. "The Political Economy of Sustainable Federations," CESifo Working Paper Series 315, CESifo.
    4. Wallace Oates, 2005. "Toward A Second-Generation Theory of Fiscal Federalism," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(4), pages 349-373, August.
    5. Ellingsen, Tore, 1998. "Externalities vs internalities: a model of political integration," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 251-268, May.
    6. MacCulloch, Robert, 2001. "Does social insurance help secure property rights?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 6648, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Guy Gilbert, 1996. "Le fédéralisme financier, perspectives de microéconomie spatiale," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 47(2), pages 311-363.
    8. Reiner Eichenberger & David Stadelmann, 2009. "Consequences of Debt Capitalization: Property Ownership and Debt/Tax Choice," CREMA Working Paper Series 2009-08, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    9. D’Erasmo, P. & Mendoza, E.G. & Zhang, J., 2016. "What is a Sustainable Public Debt?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2493-2597, Elsevier.
    10. Pica Giovanni, 2010. "Capital Markets Integration and Labor Market Institutions," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-57, March.
    11. Hansen, Gary D & Imrohoroglu, Ayse, 1992. "The Role of Unemployment Insurance in an Economy with Liquidity Constraints and Moral Hazard," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 118-142, February.
    12. Apolte Thomas, 2018. "Sezessionsklauseln: Ein Instrument zur Förderung von Freiheit und Wohlstand?," ORDO. Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 69(1), pages 366-382, July.
    13. Anton Bondarev & Beat Hintermann & Frank C. Krysiak & Ralph Winkler, 2017. "The Intricacy of Adapting to Climate Change: Flood Protection as a Local Public Goods Game," CESifo Working Paper Series 6382, CESifo.
    14. Boadway, Robin & Song, Zhen & Tremblay, Jean-François, 2013. "Non-cooperative pollution control in an inter-jurisdictional setting," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(5), pages 783-796.
    15. Genqiang Lei & Xiaohong Huang & Penghui Xi, 2016. "The impact of transfer payments on urban-rural income gap: based on fuzzy RD analysis of China’s midwestern county data," China Finance and Economic Review, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 1-17, December.
    16. Mitsui, Kiyoshi & Sato, Motohiro, 2001. "Ex ante free mobility, ex post immobility, and time consistency in a federal system," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 445-460, December.
    17. Michał Mackiewicz, 2006. "Przyczyny deficytu finansów publicznych w świetle nowej ekonomii politycznej," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 3, pages 1-22.
    18. Carlos Garriga, 2019. "Optimal Fiscal Policy in Overlapping Generations Models," Public Finance Review, , vol. 47(1), pages 3-31, January.
    19. Oates, Wallace E., 2001. "Fiscal competition and European Union: contrasting perspectives," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2-3), pages 133-145, April.
    20. Alberto Alesina & Eliana La Ferrara, 2003. "Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2028, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.

    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:ucp:jpolec:v:104:y:1996:i:5:p:979-1009. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE .

    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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.