Bulletin n. 3/2011
February 2012
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Marko Koethenbuerger
    How do local governments decide on public policy in fiscal federalism? Tax vs. expenditure optimization
    in Journal of Public Economics , Volume 95, Issues 11–12 ,  2011 ,  1516–1522
    Previous literature widely assumes that taxes are optimized in local public finance while expenditures adjust residually. This paper endogenizes the choice of the optimization variable. In particular, it analyzes how federal policy toward local governments' influences the way local governments decide on public policy. Unlike the usual presumption, the paper shows that local governments may choose to optimize over expenditures. The result holds when federal policy subsidizes local taxation. The results offer a new perspective of the efficiency implications of federal policy toward local governments and, thereby, enable a more precise characterization of local government behavior in fiscal federalism.
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