What would happen if the City of Chicago, the Chicago Public Schools, and Cook County all became insolvent at the same time? How should policy-makers and courts respond? This Article argues that the pension and budget crises that have left so many local governments deeply in debt have generated another looming problem: the prospect of simultaneous debt crises in overlapping local governments—municipalities, school districts, counties, and other special purpose entities that govern and tax the same territory. These crises will be worse than prior local insolvency crises, as conflicts among overlapping governments will increase the pain suffered by taxpayers, service recipients, and creditors alike. There has been virtually no public discussion of this problem, and as result, much is still unknown about who would bear the costs of simultaneous insolvency crises and how courts and legislatures would respond. This Article explains how collective action problems among overlapping local governments will make addressing simultaneous insolvency crises difficult, as jurisdictions will hold out against needed restructuring of their obligations in the hopes that another jurisdiction will go first, thereby relieving the strain on the shared tax base, or alternatively, raise revenues in ways that are individually rational but collectively costly. Existing tools for addressing local governmental insolvency, particularly Chapter 9 bankruptcy, cannot currently address coordination problems among overlapping local governments. Accordingly, the Article proposes several changes to Chapter 9 doctrine and to state laws that would counteract the collective action problems that afflict overlapping local governments during insolvency crises and spread the pain of restructuring.
{"title":"Junk Cities: Resolving Insolvency Crises in Overlapping Municipalities","authors":"A. Chaudhury, Adam J. Levitin, David Schleicher","doi":"10.15779/Z38F18SF6W","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15779/Z38F18SF6W","url":null,"abstract":"What would happen if the City of Chicago, the Chicago Public Schools, and Cook County all became insolvent at the same time? How should policy-makers and courts respond? This Article argues that the pension and budget crises that have left so many local governments deeply in debt have generated another looming problem: the prospect of simultaneous debt crises in overlapping local governments—municipalities, school districts, counties, and other special purpose entities that govern and tax the same territory. These crises will be worse than prior local insolvency crises, as conflicts among overlapping governments will increase the pain suffered by taxpayers, service recipients, and creditors alike. There has been virtually no public discussion of this problem, and as result, much is still unknown about who would bear the costs of simultaneous insolvency crises and how courts and legislatures would respond. \u0000This Article explains how collective action problems among overlapping local governments will make addressing simultaneous insolvency crises difficult, as jurisdictions will hold out against needed restructuring of their obligations in the hopes that another jurisdiction will go first, thereby relieving the strain on the shared tax base, or alternatively, raise revenues in ways that are individually rational but collectively costly. Existing tools for addressing local governmental insolvency, particularly Chapter 9 bankruptcy, cannot currently address coordination problems among overlapping local governments. Accordingly, the Article proposes several changes to Chapter 9 doctrine and to state laws that would counteract the collective action problems that afflict overlapping local governments during insolvency crises and spread the pain of restructuring.","PeriodicalId":226719,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Comparative Federal Institutions (Topic)","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134464912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There are many situations where different groups make collective decisions by voting in an assembly or committee in which each group is represented by a single person. There is a great deal of theoretical, normative literature on the question of what voting system such an assembly should use, but a consensus is lacking. Instead of studying theoretical concepts on the design of voting systems, I ask which voting systems individuals actually prefer. This is important for the legitimacy and acceptance of voting institutions. To answer this question, I design a laboratory experiment in which participants choose voting systems for assemblies when they do not know which group they will be in (and, as a control, when they do know it). Behind the veil of ignorance, participants predominantly choose voting systems that allocate more voting power to larger groups than the most prominent theoretical concept suggests. In front of the veil of ignorance, participants predominantly choose voting systems favoring their own group.
{"title":"Choosing Voting Systems Behind the Veil of Ignorance: A Two-Tier Voting Experiment","authors":"Matthias Weber","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2991924","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2991924","url":null,"abstract":"There are many situations where different groups make collective decisions by voting in an assembly or committee in which each group is represented by a single person. There is a great deal of theoretical, normative literature on the question of what voting system such an assembly should use, but a consensus is lacking. Instead of studying theoretical concepts on the design of voting systems, I ask which voting systems individuals actually prefer. This is important for the legitimacy and acceptance of voting institutions. To answer this question, I design a laboratory experiment in which participants choose voting systems for assemblies when they do not know which group they will be in (and, as a control, when they do know it). Behind the veil of ignorance, participants predominantly choose voting systems that allocate more voting power to larger groups than the most prominent theoretical concept suggests. In front of the veil of ignorance, participants predominantly choose voting systems favoring their own group.","PeriodicalId":226719,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Comparative Federal Institutions (Topic)","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133498172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In multi-level systems, voters have several opportunities to cast their ballots. This paper focuses on the relationship between electoral behavior at the regional and state levels. The paper assesses the ramifications of the way in which state-level and regional-level elections are linked for electoral behavior analyzing the cases of Germany and Spain. In Germany, regional (Lander) level elections are directly linked to state-level policy making as the parties composing the Lander governments constitute the upper house (Bundesrat), which has considerable policy-making powers. Thus, regional elections are more than just “second-order” elections, but have direct and explicit ramifications for state-level governance. In contrast, Spain lacks a powerful upper house representing the regional governments; regional-level elections are thus of less immediate consequence for state-level governance. This paper explores whether these institutional differences are reflected in voting behavior. In particular, the paper analyzes whether differences in electoral turnout in regional and statewide elections exist across the two cases. We hypothesize that given the higher significance of regional elections for state-level policymaking in Germany, voter turnout at regional-level elections should be more closely linked to voter turnout in statewide elections compared to Spain, where regional elections are of less import for state-level politics than in Germany. Our initial findings confirm this hypothesis.
{"title":"Does the Type of Federalism Make a Difference for Electoral Behavior? Comparing Spain and Germany","authors":"Kerstin Hamann, P. Pollock","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.1664030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.1664030","url":null,"abstract":"In multi-level systems, voters have several opportunities to cast their ballots. This paper focuses on the relationship between electoral behavior at the regional and state levels. The paper assesses the ramifications of the way in which state-level and regional-level elections are linked for electoral behavior analyzing the cases of Germany and Spain. In Germany, regional (Lander) level elections are directly linked to state-level policy making as the parties composing the Lander governments constitute the upper house (Bundesrat), which has considerable policy-making powers. Thus, regional elections are more than just “second-order” elections, but have direct and explicit ramifications for state-level governance. In contrast, Spain lacks a powerful upper house representing the regional governments; regional-level elections are thus of less immediate consequence for state-level governance. This paper explores whether these institutional differences are reflected in voting behavior. In particular, the paper analyzes whether differences in electoral turnout in regional and statewide elections exist across the two cases. We hypothesize that given the higher significance of regional elections for state-level policymaking in Germany, voter turnout at regional-level elections should be more closely linked to voter turnout in statewide elections compared to Spain, where regional elections are of less import for state-level politics than in Germany. Our initial findings confirm this hypothesis.","PeriodicalId":226719,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Comparative Federal Institutions (Topic)","volume":"41 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-08-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116880292","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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