The Birth, Adjustment and Death of States

Kjell Hausken and John F. Knutsen ()

Public Economics from EconWPA

Abstract: The article proposes Erection, Adjustment, and Death mechanisms for governmental units, giving autonomy to each citizen as in a direct democracy. Rather than focusing on a narrow model with restrictive and specialized assumptions, and subsequent solutions, as has been common in the literature, the article takes citizens seriously acknowledging that they are best equipped to find their own solutions. The emphasis is on the practical approach of how citizens discover and implement their subjective preferences. Governmental units are subjected to some of the same market forces as ordinary firms, in the spirit of Coase (1988). This brings the interaction between governmental units closer to a market structure, and serves to eliminate or reduce many of the coercive elements of government.

Keywords: Territorial units; individual liberty; individual decision making; individual welfare; competitive markets; public choice; constitutional economics; political economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H4 H5 H11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pbe
Date: 2002-05-15
Note: Type of Document - pdf; prepared on pc; to print on PostScript; pages: 20
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwppe:0205004

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