Fiscal federalism with a single instrument to finance government

The structure of each level of government in the United States has changed over the last 200 years. Wallis (2000) has presented empirical evidence that relates the dominance of each level not to the functions government decides to undertake (the expenditures it commits to), but to the costs and benefits of the financial instruments each level has available (the way each level extracts revenues). In this paper we provide theoretical evidence for this hypothesis. We show why two different levels of government (e.g. state and federal) would not want to use a common instrument to finance the same good

On committed citizen-candidates

I study if the equilibria of the citizen-candidate model analyzed in Osborne and Slivinski (1996) are robust to some degree of commitment from candidates. In analogy with their notion of "sincere" voting, I consider one of "sincere" commitment: commitment is costless to positions closer to one's ideal point than any other candidate's position, but it is too costly to positions further away. With "sincere" voting this ensures candidates always vote for themselves. I show hat, for the most common population distributions, all the multiple candidate equilibria analyzed in Osborne and Slivinski (1996) are not equilibria in this model, as the unique equilibrium with four or less candidates has a single candidate entering

Information transmission in the absence of commitment

I consider an election with candidate entry and a state variable that affects all players' utility, as it translates their ideal points. Candidates are informed of the realization of the state, whilst voters are not. I study the effect of candidates' commitment on equilibria. I show that if they cannot commit, their private information is of no consequence for the election (i.e. even in a decisiontheoretic sense). Instead, when they can commit this is a standard signaling game

Dedication to Ole Due

It is a great pleasure for me to write a few words in tribute to my former colleague and friend Ole Due. Over the past three decades, as a civil servant, a teacher, a judge, and President of the EC Court of Justice, Ole Due has strived and succeeded in making a substantial and valuable contribution to the development and understanding of European Community law

INFORMATION TRANSMISSION IN THE ABSENCE OF COMMITMENT

I consider an election with candidate entry and a state variable that affects all players’ utility, as it translates their ideal points. Candidates are informed of the realization of the state, whilst voters are not. I study the effect of candidates’ commitment on equilibria. I show that if they cannot commit, their private information is of no consequence for the election (i.e. even in a decisiontheoretic sense). Instead, when they can commit this is a standard signaling game.

On committed citizen-candidates.

I study if the equilibria of the citizen-candidate model analyzed in Osborne and Slivinski (1996) are robust to some degree of commitment from candidates. In analogy with their notion of "sincere" voting, I consider one of "sincere" commitment: commitment is costless to positions closer to one's ideal point than any other candidate's position, but it is too costly to positions further away. With "sincere" voting this ensures candidates always vote for themselves. I show hat, for the most common population distributions, all the multiple candidate equilibria analyzed in Osborne and Slivinski (1996) are not equilibria in this model, as the unique equilibrium with four or less candidates has a single candidate entering.

Fiscal federalism with a single instrument to finance government.

The structure of each level of government in the United States has changed over the last 200 years. Wallis (2000) has presented empirical evidence that relates the dominance of each level not to the functions government decides to undertake (the expenditures it commits to), but to the costs and benefits of the financial instruments each level has available (the way each level extracts revenues). In this paper we provide theoretical evidence for this hypothesis. We show why two different levels of government (e.g. state and federal) would not want to use a common instrument to finance the same good.