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In this paper, I relate the degree of progressivity of the income tax scheme to the prevailing income inequality in the society. I find that, consistent with the data, more unequal societies implement more progressive income tax systems. I build a model of political coalition formation, where different income groups have to agree on a tax scheme to finance the public good. I show that, the greater income inequality is, i.e. the further away the rich are from the rest of the population, the less able they are to credibly commit to participating in a coalition. Therefore, as income inequality rises, the rich are increasingly excluded from the design of the income tax scheme. Consequently, the rich bear a larger fraction of the public good, and the tax system becomes more progressive.

Without denying particular dimensions of the decentralisation in Sub-Saharan countries, this paper applies standard reasoning from the fiscal federalism literature to a developing country and tests the existence of strategic interactions among local Beninese governments, called 'communes'. We first propose a two-jurisdiction model of public expenditure interactions, considering a constrained Nash equilibrium to capture the extreme poverty of some communes. We show that spillovers among jurisdictions involve strategic behaviours of local officials who have sufficient levels of fiscal resources. Second, by estimating a spatial lag model, our analysis provides evidence for the presence of strategic interactions in Benin, contingent on 'communes fiscal autonomy. Such interactions arise among communes which are geographically or ethnically close. We also highlight both an opportunistic behaviour of local governments before local elections and an effect of partisan affiliations. This African democracy appears to be as concerned as developed democracies with strategic fiscal interactions.

Throughout the XXth century arms have not only been tradable goods, but also foreign policy instruments. This paper focuses on countries supplying major conventional weapons (MCW), and investigates whether changes in political conditions impact the quantity of MCW supplied to third countries. In particular, I concentrate on democratic exporters and estimate a gravity-type panel TOBIT for the years 1975-2004. Results suggest that the exporter's chief executive being right-wing has a positive and significant impact on MCW exports. This may reect a general right-wing tendency to support national industry and deregulate heavy industry exports. I also find that higher political competition is associated with higher MCW exports, and that executives serving the last year of their current term tend to increase MCW exports if they cannot be re-elected, and to decrease MCW exports if they run for re-election. ; La politique peut influencer les ventes d'armes de plusieurs façons et l'histoire indique qu'elle le fait réellement : tout au long du XXème siècle les armes ont non seulement été des marchandises commercialisables mais également des instruments de politique extérieure. Ce document se concentre sur des pays fournissant des armes conventionnelles majeures (ACM) et étudie si l'orientation politique du gouvernement en place a une importance sur la politique d'exportation d'armes. En particulier, je me concentre sur les pays démocratiques exportateurs pour vérifier comment l'orientation politique, de droite ou de gauche, a un impact sur la quantité d'armes fournis aux pays tiers. A cette fin, une équation de commerce bilatéral est estimée pour les années 1975-2004, en appliquant un modèle TOBIT en panel. Les résultats suggèrent que l'éxecutif d'un pays exportateur de droite a un impact positif et significatif sur les exportations d'ACM. Ceci peut refléter une tendance générale de droite d'abaisser les barrières douanières, avec des conséquences sur la derégulation des exportations de l'industrie lourde ou un appui ...