The impact of referendums on the centralisation of public goods provision: a political economy approach

The paper compares decision-making on the centralisation of public goods provision in the presence of regional externalities under representative and direct democratic institutions. A model with two regions, two public goods and regional spillovers is developed in which uncertainty over the true pre...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Schnellenbach, Jan (VerfasserIn) , Feld, Lars P. (VerfasserIn) , Schaltegger, Christoph A. (VerfasserIn)
Dokumenttyp: Buch/Monographie Arbeitspapier
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Heidelberg University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics May 2007
Ausgabe:This version: May 2007
Schriftenreihe:Discussion paper series / Universität Heidelberg, Department of Economics no. 440
In: Discussion paper series (no. 440)

Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:Resolving-System, Volltext: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/127261
Verlag, Volltext: http://www.awi.uni-heidelberg.de/with2/Discussion%20papers/papers/dp440.pdf
Volltext
Verfasserangaben:Jan Schnellenbach, Lars Feld and Christoph Schaltegger
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:The paper compares decision-making on the centralisation of public goods provision in the presence of regional externalities under representative and direct democratic institutions. A model with two regions, two public goods and regional spillovers is developed in which uncertainty over the true preferences of candidates makes strategic delegation impossible. Instead, it is shown that the existence of rent extraction by delegates alone suffices to make cooperative centralisation more likely through representative democracy. In the non-cooperative case, the more extensive possibilities for institutional design under representative democracy increase the likelihood of centralisation. Direct democracy may thus be interpreted as a federalism-preserving institution.
Beschreibung:Online Resource
Dokumenttyp:Systemvoraussetzungen: Acrobat Reader.