Disclaimer: The conclusions contained within this report reflect those of the authors, and not necessarily those of Ball State University or its governing body.

My purpose here is not to argue one way or the other as regards the controversy about the proper role, structure or finance of local authorities in Ireland. I propose to do no more than to parade some of the contributions which economics can make to an analysis of these issues. Much of what I have to say may seem rather remote from the nuts and bolts of reform, but I believe that we have only t...

This paper is taken from a study financed by a grant from the World Bank Research Committee. The full report should be available from mid-1998.

This paper and a special issue of the journal addresses the varying capacity of local governments in different regions in the world. Local Government Capacity as a concept can have varying definitions, but in this framework it seems adequate to simply define it as `the ability of local government to perform their functions in an effective and efficient way ́. The idea behind this special issue a...

Using data from the nationally representative China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we describe Chinese adults' attitudes towards three specific aspects of social environments: local government performance, severity of major social issues, and social trust. We further explore how county level contextual factors and personal experiences relate to subjective social environments, while controlling fo...

In New Zealand, as in many other countries, housing in the private-rental sector is in worse condition than in the owner-occupier housing sector. New Zealand residential buildings have no inspection regime after original construction signoff. Laws and regulations mandating standards for existing residential housing are outdated and spread over a range of instruments. Policies to improve standar...

This paper discusses the common-pool problems that arise when multiple territorially overlapping governments share the authority to provide services and levy taxes in a common geographic area. Contrary to a traditional Tiebout model in which increasing the number of local governments increases competition and improves efficiency, when jurisdictions overlap, increasing the number of governments ...

In the discourse of local government law, the idea that a mobile populace can “vote with its feet” has long served as a justification for devolution and decentralization. Tracing to Charles Tiebout’s seminal work in public finance, the legal-structural prescription that follows is that a diversity of independent and empowered local governments can best satisfy the varied preferences of resident...

Galaxy Airlines Flight 203 crashed following takeoff from Reno-Cannon International Airport on 21 Jan. 1985. Sixty-eight persons on board the aircraft perished in the initial crash and resultant fire which followed. Two victims expired as a result of crash injuries within subsequent days and one passenger survived. A community disaster response plan was in place and had been practiced by local ...