TY - GEN A1 - Pitsoulis, Athanassios T1 - The egalitarian battlefield: Reflections on the origins of majority rule in archaic Greece Y1 - 2011 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Pitsoulis, Athanassios A1 - Schwuchow, Sören C. T1 - Consumer Choice: Income, Tastes, and Prices N2 - Wolfram Demonstrations Project Y1 - 2011 UR - http://demonstrations.wolfram.com ER - TY - GEN A1 - Feld, Lars P. A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan T1 - Fiscal Federalism and Macroeconomic Performance: A Survey of Recent Research T2 - Environment and Planning – Government and Policy N2 - In this paper, we offer both a broad survey of the literature on fiscal federalism and long-run economic performance, and a detailed report of some of our own recent studies in this field. We look at the difference between study types (cross-country versus single-country studies), and at the relevance of the broader institutional framework into which fiscal decentralization is embedded. We also look into structural change and intergovernmental transfers as a detailed mechanism through which federalism may have an impact on aggregate economic performance.It turns out that fiscal decentralization has no robust effect on growth, but the evidence hints at a positive effect on overall productivity, conditional on the broader institutional framework. KW - fiscal federalism KW - fiscal decentralization KW - growth KW - economic performance Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1068/c1054r SN - 1472-3425 VL - 29 IS - 2 SP - 224 EP - 243 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Döring, Thomas A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan T1 - A Tale of Two Federalisms: Long-Term Institutional Change in the United States and in Germany T2 - Constitutional Political Economy N2 - This paper offers a comparison of government centralization in the United States and in Germany. After briefly laying out the history of federalism in both countries, we identify the instruments of centralization at work. It is argued that an initial constitutional framework of competitive federalism does not prevent the long-term centralization of competencies. Against a background of historical evidence, we discuss the political economics of government centralization. It is argued that formal institutions clearly have an effect on the pathways of government centralization, but not necessarily on the broader trend of centralization. The conclusion is reached that preservation of state and local autonomy may eventually hinge on informal political institutions. KW - Federalism KW - Government Centralization KW - State and Local Autonomy KW - Bryce Law KW - Popitz Law KW - Institutional Evolution KW - Constitutional economics KW - Formal institutions Y1 - 2011 SN - 1043-4062 VL - 22 IS - 1 SP - 83 EP - 102 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan ED - Garello, Pierre T1 - Current Issues in Tax Policy in Germany T2 - Taxation in Europe 2011 : the yearly report on the evolution of European tax systems Y1 - 2011 UR - http://s3.amazonaws.com/zanran_storage/www.irefeurope.org/ContentPages/2515413947.pdf PB - Institute for Research on Economic and Fiscal Issues CY - Paris ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan A1 - Feld, Lars P. A1 - Schaltegger, Christoph A. T1 - The Impact of Referendums on the Centralization of Public Goods Provision: A Political Economy Approach T2 - Economics of Governance N2 - The paper compares decision-making on the centralisation of public goods provision in the presence of regional externalities under representative and direct democratic institutions. A model with two regions, two public goods and regional spillovers is developed in which uncertainty over the true preferences of candidates makes strategic delegation impossible. Instead, it is shown that the existence of rent extraction by delegates alone suffices to make cooperative centralisation more likely through representative democracy. In the non-cooperative case, the more extensive possibilities for institutional design under representative democracy increase the likelihood of centralisation. Direct democracy may thus be interpreted as a federalism-preserving institution. KW - Centralisation KW - Direct democracy KW - Representative democracy KW - Public good provision Y1 - 2010 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10101-009-0063-1 SN - 1435-8131 VL - 11 IS - 1 SP - 3 EP - 26 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan ED - Alm, James ED - Martinez-Vazquez, Jorge ED - Torgler, Benno T1 - Vertical and Horizontal Reciprocity in a Theory of Taxpayer Compliance T2 - Developing Alternative Frameworks Explaining Tax Compliance N2 - This paper examines the interplay of horizontal and vertical reci- procity in determining the degree of tax compliance. Horizontal reciprocity is of the type that is frequently observed in public goods games, where reciprocally minded taxpayers may respond to non-contributing, strictly sel sh taxpayers by mimicking their sel sh behaviour. Vertical reciprocity is located in the relationship between the taxpayer and her government. Some recent empirical evidence is suggesting that initial cooperation of taxpayers with the scal authorities is not so much the result of positive reciprocity, but rather of a general tendency to obey authorities. Vertical reciprocity is therefore modeled as the propensity of taxpayers to retaliate against an uncooperative government by means of reducing the level of tax compliance. This allows us to identify feedback mechanisms between horizontal and vertical reciprocity. KW - tax compliance KW - tax morale KW - tax evasion KW - reciprocity Y1 - 2010 SN - 978-0-415-57698-7 SN - 0-415-57698-9 SP - 56 EP - 73 PB - Routledge CY - London ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan T1 - Current Issues in Tax Policy in Germany and the Netherlands T2 - Taxation in Europe 2010 : the yearly report on the evolution of European tax systems Y1 - 2010 PB - Institut de Recherches Economiques et Fiscales CY - Marseille ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan A1 - Feld, Lars P. A1 - Savioz, Marcel T1 - Gebhard Kirchgässner, 60 Years On T2 - Public Choice Y1 - 2010 SN - 1573-7101 VL - 144 IS - 3-4 SP - 393 EP - 399 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Groß, Steffen T1 - The Legacy of Open Thought Y1 - 2009 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan ED - Garello, Pierre T1 - Current Issues in Tax Policy in Germany and the Netherlands T2 - Taxation in Europe 2009 : the yearly report on the evolution of European tax systems Y1 - 2009 PB - Institute for Research on Economic and Fiscal Issues CY - Paris ER - TY - GEN A1 - Pitsoulis, Athanassios A1 - Siebel, Jens Peter T1 - Capturing Four Budget Deficit Theories in a Simple Graphical Model T2 - SSRN eLibrary Y1 - 2009 UR - http://ssrn.com/abstract=1511282 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Pitsoulis, Athanassios A1 - Siebel, Jens Peter T1 - Stubborn Conservatives, Tax Competition and Strategic Deficit T2 - Papers and Proceedings of the Third Panhellenic Conference on International Political Economy, Athen, 2008 Y1 - 2008 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Pitsoulis, Athanassios ED - Shinnick, Edward ED - Pickhardt, Michael T1 - A Dynamic Theory of Collective Persuasion T2 - The Shadow Economy, Corruption and Governance Y1 - 2008 SN - 978-1-84844-079-1 SP - 43 EP - 62 PB - Elgar CY - Cheltenham ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan T1 - Rational Ignorance Is Not Bliss: When Do Lazy Voters Learn from Decentralised Political Experiments? T2 - Journal of Economics and Statistics N2 - A popular argument about economic policy under uncertainty states that decentralisation offers the possibility to learn from local or regional policy experiments. Often, an analogy between market competition as a discovery procedure and political competition is used to corroborate this argument. We argue that political learning processes are not trivial and do not occur frictionlessly: Voters have an inherent tendency to retain a given stock of policy-related knowledge which was costly to accumulate, so that yardstick competition is improbable to function well particularly for complex issues, if representatives' actions are tightly controlled by the electorate. We show that factor mobility does have the potential to endogenously disturb equilibria on regional markets for political theories, and therefore does provide for improved political learning processes compared to unitary systems. But the results we can expect are far from the ideal mechanisms of producing and utilising knowledge often described in the literature. In particular, collective learning may occur in the relatively efficient region, while the status quo may be fortified in the relatively inefficient region. KW - Policy decentralisation KW - fiscal competition KW - model uncertainty KW - collective learning Y1 - 2008 U6 - https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.990268 SN - 0021-4027 VL - 228 IS - 4 SP - 372 EP - 393 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Feld, Lars P. A1 - Schaltegger, Christoph A. A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan T1 - On Government Centralisation and Budget Referendums: Evidence from Switzerland T2 - European Economic Review N2 - Several authors have argued that a centralization of fiscal powers in a federation is less likely to occur if citizens have to approve a change in the assignments of responsibilities by a popular referendum. This outcome may be due to the fact that logrolling is more difficult under direct than under representative democracy. It may also be caused by citizens’ fear that a centralization of fiscal authority facilitates the extraction of rents by the government or the legislature. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that centralization is less likely under referendum decision-making in the unique institutional setting of Switzerland. Using a panel of Swiss cantons from 1980 to 1998, the empirical analysis provides evidence that referendums induce less centralization of fiscal activities. KW - Centralization KW - Fiscal federalism KW - Fiscal referendums Y1 - 2008 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2007.05.005 SN - 1873-572X VL - 52 IS - 4 SP - 611 EP - 645 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan T1 - Current Issues in Tax Policy in Germany and the Netherlands T2 - Taxation in Europe 2008 : the yearly report on the evolution of European tax systems Y1 - 2008 PB - Institute for Research on Economic and Fiscal Issues CY - Paris ER - TY - GEN A1 - Witt, Ulrich A1 - Schubert, Christian T1 - Constitutional Interests in the Face of Innovations: How much do we need to know about Risk Preferences? T2 - Constitutional Political Economy Y1 - 2008 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-008-9044-6 SN - 1572-9966 VL - 19 IS - 3 SP - 203 EP - 225 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pitsoulis, Athanassios A1 - Siebel, Jens Peter T1 - Political and Economic Effects of Tax Competition and Deficits Y1 - 2008 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schnellenbach, Jan T1 - Tax Morale and the Legitimacy of Economic Policy T2 - Homo Oeconomicus N2 - It is proposed that a more accurate prediction of tax evasion activity than in the standard portfolio-choice model can be derived even for risk-neutral individuals if psychological costs are considered. Contrary to earlier models integrating psychological costs they are systematically derived by assuming a relationship between psychological costs, taxpayer satisfaction with public policy and taxes evaded. A formal concept of legitimacy of public policies is introduced and it is shown that legitimacy influences evasion activity. KW - Tax evasion KW - Tax morale KW - economics and psychology KW - political legitimacy Y1 - 2007 SN - 0943-0180 VL - 24 IS - 1 SP - 21 EP - 45 ER -