Investment in public infrastructures and tax competition between contiguous regions

Two contiguous regions compete to attract a population of heterogeneous firms. They choose infrastructure levels in a first stage, then compete in tax. We compare the properties of subgame perfect nash equilibria in this stage-game depending on the intrisic features of the infrastructure considered. Then we derive some implications regarding the scope for cooperation between the regions

Quelles frontières pour l'agglomération bruxelloise

La mise en oeuvre d'un plan de développement économique pose un problème particulier pour Bruxelles, et plus généralement chaque fois que la définition des frontières politiques qui circonscrivent la compétence des pouvoirs publics locaux diffère notablement de la définition "économique"de l'agglomération. En effet, les décisions prises par ces pouvoirs publics locaux voient leurs effets largement diffusés en dehors de leur zone de compétence territoriale. Il est donc primordial pour les autorités publiques bruxelloises de délimiter l'agglomération bruxelloise, afin notamment de pouvoir coordonner certaines politiques et ainsi, de les rendre plus efficaces. Cette étude propose une délimitation des frontières de l'agglomération bruxelloise qui repose sur deux concepts : homogénéité et réciprocité. Ainsi, d'une part, l'agglomération regroupe des communes dont le profil socio-économique est relativement comparable. D'autre part, l'agglomération représente un véritable réseau de relations interdépendantes, notamment en termes de relations de travail. Ce second critère constitue la spécificité de cette étude. A partir des critères sélectionnés, l'agglomération bruxelloise se compose soit de 33 communes dans sa version restreinte, soit de 35 communes dans sa version large

Tensions of colonial punishment: perspectives on recent developments in the study of coercive networks in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean

The study of penal practices in colonised parts of Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean has recently witnessed a significant shift. The first generation of research into the coercive measures of colonial states tended to focus rather narrowly on imprisonment. The second generation, which has emerged only in the last five years, has significantly widened their field of vision to incorporate much more than the prison. The most recent literature considers capital and corporal punishment, as well as the larger functioning of police and courts. It also explores in more depth the ways in which indigenous peoples experienced and interpreted their punishments. Finally, this new research is sensitive to the paradoxes and tensions of colonial punishment, which often frustrated its purposes. This article reflects upon these historiographical shifts, and argues that, in light of these developments, a new framework for the study of colonial punishment is now called for. It suggests that an approach which views colonial coercive techniques as part of imperial ‘coercive networks’ encapsulates this new thinking

Troubling the exclusive privileges of citizenship: mobile solidarities, asylum seekers, and the right to work

This article discusses asylum seekers and the right to work in the UK. Differential access to the labour market is one of the ways in which the state maintains a distinction between British citizens, who ‘belong’, and non-citizens who do not. While such a policy approach garners widespread support amongst the general public of citizens, it does not go uncontested. This article discusses a UK-based campaign, ‘Let Them Work’, which has sought to influence the government in extending the right to work to asylum seekers. In doing so, it demonstrates the ways in which the stratified regime of citizenship rights is contested politically, and explores how such contestation troubles the exclusive privileges of citizenship by enacting mobile solidarities from marginalised spaces