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This paper addresses the issue of inter-jurisdictional cooperation when incumbents are pure rent seekers. Asymmetric fiscal needs bias yardstick competition as in Allers (2012). While incumbents gain control over the political yardstick competition by cooperating, this bias leads to asymmetric rent share. Cooperation is also intrinsically unstable. Furthermore, incentives, such as matching grants or economies of scale, may enhance cooperation, but will not increase political accountability.

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This paper explores the impact of income inequality between jurisdictions on government decision making affecting the size of the public sector. We model policy choices as the outcome of regional representatives' negotiations in the legislature. We show that the more unequal interregional income distribution is, the greater the underprovision of public goods. More specifically, greater interregional income disparity leads to a smaller public sector. A wealthier economy as a result may have a relatively smaller government size when income disparity increases. Copyright � 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc..