IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpur/0504001.html

Policy Innovation In Federal Systems

Author

Listed:
  • Christos Kotsogiannis

    (University of Exeter)

  • Robert Schwager

    (Georg-August-Universitat Gottingen)

Abstract

Conventional wisdom has it that policy innovation is better promoted in a federal rather than in a unitary system. Recent research, however, has provided theoretical evidence to the contrary: a multi-jurisdictional system is characterized---due to the existence of a horizontal information externality---by under-provision of policy innovation. This paper presents a simple model that introduces political competition for federal office. Under such competition political actors use the innovative policies in order to signal ability to the electorate. In the equilibrium analyzed policy innovation occurs more frequently than in a unitary system. It is thus shown that, once electoral motives are accounted for, the conventional wisdom is validated.

Suggested Citation

  • Christos Kotsogiannis & Robert Schwager, 2005. "Policy Innovation In Federal Systems," Urban/Regional 0504001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpur:0504001
    Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/urb/papers/0504/0504001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:cup:apsrev:v:63:y:1969:i:03:p:880-899_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Wallace E. Oates & Wallace E. Oates, 2004. "An Essay on Fiscal Federalism," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 22, pages 384-414, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Koleman S. Strumpf, 2002. "Does Government Decentralization Increase Policy Innovation?," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 4(2), pages 207-241, April.
    4. Robert P. Inman & Daniel L. Rubinfeld, 1997. "Rethinking Federalism," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 43-64, Fall.
    5. repec:bla:jpbect:v:4:y:2002:i:2:p:207-41 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Kollman, Ken & Miller, John H & Page, Scott E, 2000. "Decentralization and the Search for Policy Solutions," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 102-128, April.
    7. repec:cup:apsrev:v:63:y:1969:i:03:p:880-899_25 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Michael J. Keen & Christos Kotsogiannis, 2002. "Does Federalism Lead to Excessively High Taxes?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 363-370, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Johannes Rincke, 2005. "Neighborhood Influence and Political Change: Evidence from US School Districts," Public Economics 0511011, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Robert Schwager, 2005. "PISA‐Schock und Hochschulmisere – Hat der deutsche Bildungsföderalismus versagt?," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 6(2), pages 189-205, May.
    3. Hindriks, Jean & Lockwood, Ben, 2009. "Decentralization and electoral accountability: Incentives, separation and voter welfare," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 385-397, September.

    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. Kotsogiannis, Christos & Schwager, Robert, 2006. "On the incentives to experiment in federations," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 484-497, November.
    2. Lars P. Feld & Wolfgang Kerber, 2006. "Mehr-Ebenen Jurisdiktionssysteme: Zur variablen Architektur von Integration," Marburg Working Papers on Economics 200605, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    3. Geys, Benny & Konrad, Kai A., . "Federalism and optimal allocation across levels of governance," Chapters in Economics,, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    4. Ania, Ana B. & Wagener, Andreas, 2016. "Decentralized redistribution in a laboratory federation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 49-59.
    5. William M. Shobe & Dallas Burtraw, 2012. "Rethinking Environmental Federalism In A Warming World," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(04), pages 1-33.
    6. Millimet, Daniel L., 2013. "Environmental Federalism: A Survey of the Empirical Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 7831, IZA Network @ LISER.
    7. Boadway, Robin & Tremblay, Jean-François, 2012. "Reassessment of the Tiebout model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(11), pages 1063-1078.
    8. Lars P. Feld & Gebhard Kirchgässner & Christoph A. Schaltegger, 2004. "Fiscal Federalism and Economic Performance: Evidence from Swiss Cantons," Marburg Working Papers on Economics 200420, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    9. Henning Klodt & Oliver Lorz, 2008. "The coordinate plane of global governance," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 29-40, March.
    10. Ana B. Ania & Andreas Wagener, 2021. "Laboratory federalism with public funds sharing," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(3), pages 1047-1065, July.
    11. Ania, Ana B. & Wagener, Andreas, 2016. "Decentralized redistribution in a laboratory federation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 49-59.
    12. Thushyanthan Baskaran & Lars P. Feld & Jan Schnellenbach, 2014. "Fiscal Federalism, Decentralization and Economic Growth: Survey and Meta-Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 4985, CESifo.
    13. Andreas Wagener, 2013. "Tax Competition, Relative Performance, And Policy Imitation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1251-1264, November.
    14. Amihai Glazer & Hiroki Kondo, 2007. "Innovation and Imitation Across Jurisdictions," Working Papers 070807, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    15. Steven Callande & Bård Harstad, 2015. "Experimentation in Federal Systems," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(2), pages 951-1002.
    16. Hans-Günter Krüsselberg, 2005. "Milton Friedman und der Wissenschaftliche Beirat für Familienfragen Elternkompetenz und Anteilscheine am Schulbudget – Gedanken über Reformpotenziale," Marburg Working Papers on Economics 200506, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    17. Lars P. Feld & Horst Zimmermann & Thomas Döring, 2003. "Föderalismus, Dezentralität und Wirtschaftswachstum," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 72(3), pages 361-377.
    18. Wolfgang Kerber & Oliver Budzinski, "undated". "Towards a Differentiated Analysis of Competition of Competition Laws," German Working Papers in Law and Economics 2004-1-1090, Berkeley Electronic Press.
    19. Boggio, Margherita, 2011. "Municipal capitalism, regulatory federalism and politics," MPRA Paper 46244, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Robert Inman & Daniel Rubinfeld, 2002. "Subsidiarity, governance, and EU economic policy," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 3(04), pages 3-11, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
    • R59 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Socio-Economics of Innovation

    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:wpa:wuwpur:0504001. 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: EconWPA The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask EconWPA to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    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.