Bulletin n. 3/2006
December 2006
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
    • Kotsogiannis Christos , Schwager Robert
    On the incentives to experiment in federations
    in Journal of Urban Economics , Volume 60, Issue 3 ,  2006 ,  484-497
    Conventional wisdom has it that policy innovation is better promoted in a federal rather than in a unitary system. Recent research, however, has provided theoretical evidence to the contrary: a multi-jurisdictional system is characterized—due to the existence of a horizontal information externality—by under-provision of policy innovation. This paper presents a simple model that introduces political competition for federal office and emphasizes that such competition plays an important role in shaping the incentives for experimentation. For, in this case, political actors use the innovative policies to signal ability to the electorate. This effect may offset the effect that arises from the incentive to free ride, and so a federal system may generate more innovation than a unitary one.
    ©2001 - 2020 - Centro Studi sul Federalismo - P. IVA 94067130016