Democratization, Secessions, and Fiscal Institutions

SBR-9511420 Alberto Alesina，哈佛大学 该提案旨在支持国家科学基金会正在支持的关于财政管辖区最佳规模和组成的研究。 其主要思想是，在大政府和小政府之间存在一种权衡：大政府可以更有效地提供许多公共产品，但小政府单位可以更密切地反映公民的偏好。 分离和联合允许公民选择其政治单位的规模。 这些问题与欧盟内部财政和货币协调的程度、苏联和南斯拉夫的突然解体、捷克斯洛伐克的分裂、德国的重新统一、加拿大日益增长的分离主义运动以及将许多财政计划-从环境管制到医疗保险-从美国联邦政府转移到各州的运动等问题有着明显的关系。

SBR-9511420 Alberto Alesina, Harvard University The proposal seeks to support ongoing NSF-supported research on the optimal size and composition of fiscal jurisdictions. The main idea is that there is a tradeoff between large and small governments: large governments can provide many public goods more efficiently, but small government units can more closely mirror the preferences of their citizens. Secessions and unions allow citizens to choose the size of their political units. The questions raised have obvious bearing on such issues as: the degree of fiscal and monetary coordination within the European Union, the sudden disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, the split-up of Czechoslovakia, the re-unification of Germany, the growing separatist movements in Canada, and the movement to transfer many fiscal programs-- from environmental regulation to Medicare-- from the US federal government to the states.