Bulletin n. 3/2008 | ||
February 2009 | ||
Massimo Bordignon, Luca Colombo, Umberto Galmarini |
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Fiscal federalism and lobbying | ||
in Journal of Public Economics , Volume 92, Issue 12 , 2008 , 2288-2301 | ||
Which government functions should be decentralized (resp. centralized) once lobbying behavior is taken into account? We find that the answer largely depends on how the interests of the regional lobbies are positioned with respect to the function to be decentralized (resp. centralized). When regional lobbies have conflicting interests, then lobbying is less damaging for social welfare under centralization than under decentralization. On the contrary, when regional lobbies have aligned interests, then lobbying is less damaging for social welfare under decentralization, provided that policy spillovers on the non-organized groups are not too strong. | ||