Governments situated on the same level of a multi-level governmental system compete with each other as well as with governments placed higher or lower. This paper is concerned with horizontal competition only. It discusses both competition based on the mobility of agents and competition based on comparisons of performance across jurisdictions i.e., yardstick competition. With regard to the firs...

This paper examines the evolution and functioning of fiscal decentralisation process and intergovernmental finance in the Republic of South Africa (RSA). It analyses the system of dividing revenues among the three spheres of government. The paper highlights the challenges of designing and implementing intergovernmental fiscal policies and institutions in the post-apartheid era. The paper argues...

Protective immunity after resolved hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has been reported. However, the breadth of this immunity has remained controversial, and the role of neutralizing antibodies has not been well-defined. In the present study, two chimpanzees (CH96A008 and CH1494) with resolved monoclonal H77C (genotype 1a) infection were rechallenged with low-dose homologous H77C virus about 12...

The introduction of the Single Market resulted in a switch from destination to origin-based taxation of cross-border transactions by individuals. The theory of commodity tax competition predicts that this change should give rise to excise tax competition and thus intensify strategic interaction in the setting of excise taxes. In this paper, we provide an empirical test of this prediction using ...

We present for the first time in the literature a quantitative analysis of the efficacy of the “political safeguards of federalism.” We also test the popular theory that congressional control of state authority to tax maximizes national welfare. Both analyses rely on a hand-collected data set of every federal statute to date affecting state power to tax. Overall, our data suggest that federal d...

The interregional mobility of high skilled workers might induce an underinvestment in local public higher education when sub-federal entities independently decide on education expenditures to maximize local output. This well-known result is due to interregional spillovers and provides a justification for coordinated education policy or rather a federal intervention. However, things might change...

This paper examines how changes in state tax policy affect the number of federal estate tax returns filed in each state, utilizing data on federal estate tax return filings by state and wealth class for 18 years between 1965 and 1998. Controlling for stateand wealthclass specific fixed effects, we find that high state inheritance and estate taxes and sales taxes have statistically significant, ...

This paper analyzes the relation between tax auditing and fiscal equalization in the context of fiscal competition. We incorporate a model of tax evasion by firms into a standard tax competition framework where regional governments use their audit rates as a strategic instrument to engage in fiscal competition. It is well known that in such a situation fiscal equalization can mitigate the ineff...

To develop surrogate viruses for hepatitis C virus (HCV), we previously produced recombinant vesicular stomatitis viruses (rVSVs) lacking glycoprotein G but instead expressing chimeric HCV E1/E2 fused to G. These rVSVs were not infectious in HCV-susceptible hepatoma cells. In this study, to develop an infectious surrogate HCV based on an rVSV (vesicular stomatitis virus [VSV]/HCV), we generated...

The ‘flypaper effect’ is not an anomaly” by John E. Roemer and Joaquim Silvestre & University of California, Davis An in-kind subsidy is equivalent, both theoretically and empirically, to an increase of income for an individual consumer. But the equivalence does not empirically carry over to in-kind grants by a central government to a local one: ...