The objective of this paper is to examine the nature of India’s federal system, the reforms that have occurred over the last ten years, and what remains to be done. We begin by briefly describing the key federal institutions in India, focusing particularly on the mechanisms for center-state transfers. These transfers are quite large, and are the major explicit method for dealing with inequaliti...

We examine coordinated effects of mergers in the Swedish retail market for gasoline during the period 1986-2002. Despite significant changes in market concentration and many factors conducive to coordination, the empirical analysis shows that the level of coordination is low. In addition, statistical tests reject the hypothesis that mergers and acquisitions result in ”coordinated effects”. In p...

Contrary to the implicit assumption motivating much of the work on the political economy of protection, antidumping, along with other forms of administered protection, is the primary form of discretionary protection for most countries. A sizable literature on the political economy of antidumping has developed in the last two decades that is distinctive in its explicit focus on institutional asp...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the politics and economics of one of our country's most profitable and influential cash crops: tobacco. Toward this end, one would apply elements of the theory of public choice to the analysis of political decision-making. The public choice model will be used to illustrate the legislative decision-making process as applied to the tobacco industry. Underly...

We ask what redistributions of income and assets are feasible in a democracy, given the initial assets and their distribution. The question is motivated by the possibility that if redistribution is insufficient for the poor or excessive for the rich, they may turn against democracy. In turn, if no redistribution simultaneously satisfies the poor and the wealthy, democracy cannot be sustained. H...

The September 2001 attacks in the US raised significant concerns that containers may be used to carry out or facilitate terrorist attacks. The very large number of containers, the thousands of firms and the multitude individuals involved in container shipping, and limited government oversight over the global supply chain makes confronting this concern difficult. Further, organized crime has lon...

Natural resource-abundance tends to undermine investment efficiency whereas a resource-poor endowment places a premium on efficiency. The type of political state provides the link between the natural resource endowment and the economic outcome. Developmental political states tend to be associated with resource-poor countries, albeit not exclusively so. Their governments pursue a coherent econom...