ZEW Discussion Papers

This paper challenges the assertion that European politics would be closer to the citizens preferences if decision power were transferred from the Council of Ministers to the European Parliament. On the one…

We use a stylized model to show that, if transfers to the poor are founded on a security argument, there is a negative trade-off between law enforcement expenditures and criminality. In contrast, if transfers…

The paper considers governments' public procurement decision as a way of influencing industry structure. In a federation in which capital is mobile and capital taxation is harmonized, a home bias in public…

Tax competition arguments suggest that a government that operate in an open economy (such as local governments) should not and will not rely on non-benefit taxes, such as the income tax. Yet we observe reliance…

This paper outlines some of the implications of factor market integration for fiscal policy in the countries of the EU and for the EU itself. It draws particular attention to the dynamic dimensions of factor…

Concurrent taxation is a feature of many federal systems. As a consequence of this fact, the tax policy of one level of government affects the tax base of the other. This paper carries out a theoretical analysis…

In this paper, we test empirically for strategic behavior among the states using the cash support program Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). To motivate the empirical work, we adapt Wildasin's [41]…