Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wtssw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-08T09:31:32.398Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Theoretical Problems of Federalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2016

Albert Breton
Albert Breton*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
Get access

Abstract

Federalism as a method of organizing collective decision-making in the public sector has existed for a large number of years and though the number of countries organized on that basis did remain fairly small after the first successful experiments, that number has been increasing rapidly since the end of the last World War. Despite this fact, it remains true that there is still no accepted theory of federalism, no accepted notion of the “essentials” of that form of political organization, not even an agreement on what constitutes its major positive and normative theoretical problems. The main reason for this state of affairs is, I submit, that federalism is usually thought to be a second —or worst—best solution to difficult political problems and is seldom seen as a method that would be adopted for Utopia. This is a fatal weakness for, as Professor Stigler has already pointed out, second-best considerations, like those about index-number problems and imperfections-in-the-capital-market problems, are terminal concepts, that is, concepts that bring a discussion to a more or less abrupt conclusion instead of being a spur to the creative imagination !

Type
Research Article
Information
Recherches Économiques de Louvain/ Louvain Economic Review , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , September 1970 , pp. 107 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de recherches économiques et sociales 1970 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

(1) The only real exceptions to this view were the American Federalists.

(2) Stigler, G. J., Imperfections in the Capital Market, Journal of Political Economy, June 1967.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(3) The most important in the economic literature being Simons, H. C., Economic Policy for a Free Society, Chicago, 1948,Google Scholar Ch. I; Buchanan, J.M. and Tullock, G., The Calculus of Consent, Ann Arbor, 1962;Google Scholar and Stigler, G.J., The Tenable Range of Functions of Local Governments, U.S. Joint Economic Committee, Federal Expenditure Policy for Growth and Stability, Washington, 1959.Google Scholar

(4) Scott, F.R., Social Planning and Canadian Federalism, in Oliver, M., Social Purpose for Canada, University of Toronto Press, 1961.Google Scholar

(5) To see how these ideas can be applied to the question of political organization, albeit in a different language, see Olson, M. Jr., The Principle of ‘Fiscal Equivalence’: The Division of Responsibilities among Different Levels of Government, American Economic Review, May, 1969.Google Scholar

(6) Tiebout, C.M., A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures, Journal of Political Economy, October 1956.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(7) Coase, R.H., The problem of Social Cost, The Journal of Law and Economics, October 1960.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(8) Though see Buchanan, J.M. and Tullock, G., The Calculus of Consent, Ann Arbor, 1962.Google Scholar