A Voting Model of Federal Standards with Externalities
Paper Number:
1171
Date:
08/01/2003
Abstract:
This paper proposes a framework for studying policy making in a federal system in the presence of spillover externalities. Local jurisdictions choose local policies by majority rule subject to standards that are set by majority rule at the federal level. We characterize the induced preferences of voters for federal policies, prove existence of local majority rule equilibrium, provide an example of nonexistence of global majority rule equilibrium, and explore the welfare properties of federal standards in the presence of spillovers.
Paper Length:
23 pages
Paper:
wp1171.pdf