ausblenden:
Schlagwörter:
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Zusammenfassung:
Countries differ in their governmental architectures and in the rules that
describe the allocation of tasks, rights and duties across the various levels of
government. In this paper, we present a short and selective survey of the
development of the theory of optimal allocation of rights and duties along the
vertical dimension in federations. We thereby first discuss the multiple trade-offs
brought forward in the literature; these make that an ideal allocation of actual
tasks across levels of government may be difficult, if not impossible, to attain.
Then we turn to the consequences of a sub-optimal allocation of tasks and
discuss spillover effects, strategic interactions between jurisdictions and intergovernmental
competition. Throughout the review, we highlight paths in need of
further research such that, in time, we will have a more solid ground for policy
advice.
