VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3, 2007 <Previous Next> Public Goods in Federal Systems Catherine Hafer Dimitri Landa SUGGESTED CITATION: Catherine Hafer and Dimitri Landa (2007) "Public Goods in Federal Systems", Quarterly Journal of Political Science: Vol. 2:No 3, pp 253-275. http:/dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00006001 Download this article Tell a Colleague Get Acrobat Reader Printing Tip: Select the option to 'print as image' in the Acrobat print dialog to ensure the article prints as it appears on screen. Learn more... We study a political-economic model of federations with both federal and supplemental regional provision of a local (impure) public good with spillover effects. Regional differences in average income levels and externalities of provision induce differences in preferences over federal and regional levels of provision. Although the voters' preferences are not single-peaked, we provide sufficient conditions for the existence of voting equilibria and characterize their properties under alternative federal institutional arrangements. We show that, under different conditions on parameters, the voting equilibria display markedly different patterns of federal vs. local provision, relying on different political coalitions for their support. We show that the inter-regional redistributive tensions present in federations lead to differences in regional support for different degrees of fiscal (de-)centralization: federation, confederation, and complete centralization.

Join our email notification list  to receive alerts of published papers.