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This paper empirically investigates the underlying determinants of expenditure decentralization, based on the predictions of a new political economy model of partial decentralization. The analysis is based on an agency model, in which two levels of government are involved in the provision of a public good and voters are imperfectly informed about each government's contribution to the good, creating a shared accountability problem. Under shared expenditure responsibility, the degree of decentralization is endogenous and depends on the relative political conditions prevailing at each level of government. Consistent with the model's predictions, empirical results from a panel of Canadian provinces show that decentralization in a province increases with the electoral strength of the provincial government and decreases with the electoral strength of the federal government, in addition to being affected significantly by the partisan affiliation of both levels of government. A series of alternative empirical specifications, including an IV regression exploiting campaign spending data, are presented to assess the robustness of these results.

Fiscal decentralization is high on the agenda in policy fora. This paper empirically investigates the underlying causes of fiscal decentralization, based on the predictions of a simple political economy model. We argue that the likeliness that a central government engages in devolution of powers depends in important ways on the political forces that it faces, the theory's main insight being that the central government's electoral strength should, all else being equal, decrease that government's share of spending. Consistent with the model's predictions, empirical results from a panel of democracies support the relevance of political factors as determinants of fiscal decentralization. The relationship between central government electoral strength and both expenditure and revenue centralization emerges as negative and non-linear.

I review the theoretical literature on defined-benefit pension plans, particularly focusing on the issue of plan underfunding and benefit guarantee insurance schemes. Under reasonable assumptions underfunding can be an equilibrium outcome even in the absence of benefit insurance. The introduction of benefit guarantee funds was a reaction to the problem of underfunding, and I summarize the ensuing problems of moral hazard and adverse selection. I then discuss the still rather small body of empirical research on the subject and propose directions for future research.

I review the theoretical literature on defined-benefit pension plans, particularly focusing on the issue of plan underfunding and benefit guarantee insurance schemes. Under reasonable assumptions underfunding can be an equilibrium outcome even in the absence of benefit insurance. The introduction of benefit guarantee funds was a reaction to the problem of underfunding, and I summarize the ensuing problems of moral hazard and adverse selection. I then discuss the still rather small body of empirical research on the subject and propose directions for future research.

This paper empirically investigates the underlying determinants of expenditure decentral- ization, based on the predictions of a new political economy model of partial decentralization. The analysis is based on an agency model, in which two levels of government are involved in the provision of a public good and voters are imperfectly informed about each government's contribution to the good, creating a shared accountability problem. Under shared expenditure responsibility, the degree of decentralization is endogenous and depends on the relative politi- cal conditions prevailing at each level of government. Consistent with the model's predictions, empirical results from a panel of Canadian provinces show that decentralization in a province increases with the electoral strength of the provincial government and decreases with the electoral strength of the federal government, in addition to being affected significantly by the partisan affiliation of both levels of government. A series of alternative empirical specifications, including an IV regression exploiting campaign spending data, are presented to assess the robustness of these results.

We explore how the vertical structure of direct democracy in a federal context affects expenditure decisions of sub-central governments. In so doing we revisit previous research on the effect of direct democratic institution on public policies. Particularly, the effect of upper-level (state) existence of direct democratic control on local expenditure. Empirically we exploit the fact that both states (cantons) and local governments (municipalities) enjoy a high autonomy in setting their degree of direct democracy. This allows us to take into account vertical differences between institutions, i.e. we can distinguish the effect of state direct democracy on local expenditures for municipalities with and without own direct democratic instruments. Considering 119 municipalities belonging to 22 Swiss cantons for the period 1993-2007 we highlight that municipalities without fiscal referenda belonging to cantons with fiscal referenda present higher expenditure, while the effect is much reduced and statistically significantly different for municipalities that also avail of referenda.

Fiscal decentralization is high on the agenda in policy fora. This paper empirically investigates the underlying causes of fiscal decentralization, based on the predictions of a simple political economy model. We argue that the likeliness that a central government engages in devolution of powers depends in important ways on the political forces that it faces, the theory's main insight being that the central government's electoral strength should, all else being equal, decrease that government's share of spending. Consistent with the model's predictions, empirical results from a panel of democracies support the relevance of political factors as determinants of fiscal decentralization. The relationship between central government electoral strength and both expenditure and revenue centralization emerges as negative and non-linear.