An analysis of strategic interaction between government jurisdictions

This dissertation consists of three essays, each examining a type of strategic interaction between government jurisdictions. Specifically, I explore the effect of distributive politics in the legislature on intergovernmental competition, how fiscal decentralization serves as a constraint on Leviathan government, and how state constitutions are designed in response to neighboring institutions. In essay one, I combine the Brennan and Buchanan (1977, 1978, 1980) \u27Leviathan\u27 model with the seminal Weingast, Shepsle, and Johnsen (1981) \u27Law of 1/n\u27 to show that the effect of increased decentralization on government size is limited by associated increases in legislature size. Essay two employs two distinct empirical strategies to test the \u27Leviathan hypothesis\u27 that fiscal decentralization decreases government size. While the theory holds at the municipal and county levels, school districts exhibit relatively high tax rates while simultaneously high levels of interdependence. This suggests collusive behavior at that level. In the final essay, I perform the first spatial econometric test of diffusion of constitutional rules. I find that provisions in neighboring constitutions are a key determinate of the types of provisions found in a given state\u27s constitution