Welcome to the Home Page of Stanley L. Winer

Canada Research Chair Professor in Public Policy
School of Public Policy and Administration, and Department of Economics
Office: School of Public Policy, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Canada, K1S5B6
Tel: (613) 520-2600 x-2630. Fax: (613) 520-2551.  Email: stan_winer@carleton.ca

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Ongoing Research Projects

· The integration of public finance and collective choice. This longstanding research program combines the traditional concerns of public finance with the analysis of collective choice mechanisms, and explores the implications of the resulting frameworks for the positive and normative analysis of taxation, public expenditure and public policy generally.

· Political competition in mature democracies. Political competition is at the heart of what we call democracy. In this recent research - with Lawrence Kenny (Florida), Bernie Grofman (U.C. Irvine) and Stephen Ferris (Carleton) - we are studying the meaning, measurement and explanation of variation in the degree political competition in mature democracies such as Canada and the United States, as well as the implications of this competition for the nature of public policy and for social well-being.

· Democracy and the environment. Is more democracy (or political competition) good for the environment? How does the cost of privately mitigating the consequences of pollution affect the choice between public regulation of the environment and private action in different kinds of political regimes. These questions and other are addressed in work with Louis Hotte (University of Ottawa) and Sophie Bernard (École Polytechnique de Montréal).

· Internal Migration and Public Policy. Does public policy in ordinary times, such as the regionalized nature of unemployment insurance, substantially alter interregional migration in Canada? Do extraordinary events such as the election of a separatist government in Quebec or the closing of the east coast cod fishery affect individual migration decisions? The empirical relationship between public policy and interprovincial migration is the subject of a book forthcoming from McGill-Queen's University Press, with Kathleen Day of the University of Ottawa.

For current working papers and publications in these areas, please see the list below, or contact me. Comments and questions are always welcome.

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Selected Work: Books

· Internal Migration and Public Policy in Canada: An Empirical Study. McGill-Queen's University Press, Forthcoming, January 2012 (with Kathleen Day).

· Political Economy and Public Finance: The Role of Political Economy in the Theory and Practice of Public Economics. Edward Elgar Publishing 2002. Co-edited with Hirofumi Shibata.

· Political Economy in Federal States: Selected Essays of Stanley L. Winer. Edward Elgar Publishing 2002.

· Democratic Choice and Taxation: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis. Cambridge University Press, 1999 (with Walter Hettich). Paperback 2005. Cambridge Online 2009. (Amazon here)

· Knocking on the Back Door: Canadian Perspectives on the Political Economy of Freer Trade with the United States. Halifax: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1987, 220 pages. Co-edited with Allan Maslove.

· Internal Migration and Fiscal Structure: An Econometric Study of the Determinants of Inter-Provincial Migration in Canada. Ottawa: Economic Council of Canada, 1982, 98 pages (with Denis Gauthier).

Interprovincial Migration Data: A Supplement to "Internal Migration and Fiscal Structure", Economic Council of Canada, May 1982, 150 pages (with Denis Gauthier)].

Selected Work: Working Papers (near top) and Published Papers

· Democracy, Inequality and the Environment When Citizens Can Mitigate Privately or Act Collectively (with Sophie Bernard and Louis Hotte). CESifo Working Paper 3241, November 2010. Under revision.

· Coercion and Social Welfare in Contemporary Public Finance. Conference at Stone Mountain, Georgia, October 1-2, 2010. Co-organizer with Jorge Martinez-Vazquez of Georgia State University. Eleven papers plus formal discussions. The conference papers will appear in due course as an edited volume. The outline of the conference is found here.

· Social Welfare and Coercion in Public Finance. Revised October 2010 (with George Tridimas and Walter Hettich). See also CESifo Working Paper No. 2482, December. 2008.

· Environmental Regulation and Trade Openness in the Presence of Private Mitigation (with Louis Hotte). Revised version, August 2010. CESifo Working Paper No. 2509, December 2008. Forthcoming, Journal of Development Economics

· Fiscal Incidence When Both Individual Welfare and Family Structure Matter: The Case of Subsidization of Home-care for the Elderly (With Haizhen Mou). This draft, July 23, 2010. An ICER Working Paper, also available at the SSRN. For the IIPF Congress, Uppsala, August 2010.

· Vertical Imbalance in the Canadian Federation (with Walter Hettich). Somewhat revised, July 2, 2010. First appearing in A. Maslove (ed.), How Ottawa Spends 2008-2009.

Click here for the Chinese version.

· Political Regimes, Institutions and the Nature of Tax Systems. Prepared for 'Tax Systems: Whence and Whither (Recent evolution, current problems and future challenges)' . A Conference sponsored by the Saving Bank Foundation of Spain, FUNCAS and UNICAJA. Malaga Spain, September 9 – 11, 2009. Also presented as a general address to the annual meeting of SIEP (Società italiana di economia pubblica ) Pavia, September 24-25, 2009. July 22, 2009.

Click here for the Spanish version.

Click here for the Italian version.

· Explaining Variation in the Degree of Electoral Competition in a Mature Democracy: U.S. Senate Elections, 1922-2004 (With Lawrence Kenny and Walter Hettich). Presented at the APSA Meetings. Toronto, September 4, 2009. (With Lawrence Kenny and Bernard Grofman). February 4, 2009. Under revision

· Introduction to the Symposium on Heterogeneity in Public Policy. Parts 1 and 2. Public Finance and Management 9(2 and 3), 2009.

· Consumption versus Income Taxation: Three Moments in the Political Economy of Fiscal Choice (with George Warskett and Walter Hettich). Public Finance and Management 9(3), 311-359, 2009.

· Searching for Keynesianism (with J. Stephen Ferris). European Journal of Political Economy 24, 2008, 294 – 316.

Click here for the longer CESifo version (also dealing with automatic vs. discretionary policy) of August 2003.

Click here for list of  'Names of Variables and Data Sources'.

· Studying the Role of Political Competition in the Evolution of Government Size over Long Horizons (with J. Stephen Ferris and SooBin Park). Public Choice, 137 (1/2), 2008, 369-401.

· Just how much bigger is government in Canada? A comparative analysis of the size and structure of the public sectors in Canada and the United States, 1929 - 2004 (with Stephen Ferris). Canadian Public Policy 33(2), July 2007, 173-206.

Click here for the accompanying data spreadsheet of June 2007.

· Trending Economic Factors and the Structure of Congress, 1930 – 2002. (with John Aldrich, Bernard Grofman and Michael Tofias). Public Choice 135, 2008, 415-448.

Click here for data spreadsheet of October 2007.

· Taxation in the World: An Empirical Investigation of the Importance of Tax Bases, Collection Costs and Political Regime (with Larry Kenny) International Tax and Public Finance 13, 2006, 181-215.

· Explaining Tax Reform. For the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies Conference on The Challenges of Tax Reform in a Global Economy. October 2004.

· Structure and Coherence in the Political Economy of Public Finance (with Walter Hettich). In B. Weingast and D. Wittman (eds). The Oxford Handbook of Political Economy. Oxford University Press, 2006

· The Political Economy of Government Size (with George Tridimas). Revised version in the European Journal of Political Economy, 21(3), 2005, 643-666.

· Regulation and Taxation: Analyzing Policy Interdependence (with Walter Hettich).  Public Finance Review 34 (4), 380. 2006.

· Tinpots, Totalitarians (and Democrats): An Empirical Investigation of the Effects of Economic Growth on Civil Liberties and Political Rights (with Muhammed Islam). Public Choice 2004.

· Rules, Politics and the Normative Analysis of Taxation (with Walter Hettich). In J. Backhaus and R. Wagner (eds), Handbook of Public Economics. Kluwer Academic, 2004, 109-138.

· Policy-Induced Migration in Canada: An Empirical Study (with Kathleen Day). International Tax and Public Finance, 2006.

· The Political Economy of Taxation: Positive and Normative Analysis When Collective Choice Matters (with Walter Hettich). in C. Rowley and F. Schneider (eds),  Encyclopedia of Public Choice, Kluwer Academic 2003.

· Normative Public Finance for Political Economists (Speaking Notes for the European Public Choice Meetings), Belgirate, April 2002.

· Political Influence, Economic Interests and Endogenous Tax Structure in a Computable Equilibrium Framework: With Application to the United States, 1973 and 1983 (with Louis Hotte). Public Choice 109, 2001, 69-98.

· Information, Coordination, and Tax Policy Making (with Walter Hettich). In R. Bird, M. Trebilcock and T. Wilson (eds). Rationality in Public Policy: Retrospect and Prospect, A Tribute to Douglas Hartle. Canadian Tax Foundation, No. 104, 1999, 19-42.

· What is Missed if We Leave Out Colllective Choice in the Analaysis of Taxation (with Walter Hettich). National Tax Journal 51(2), 1998, 373-389.

· Decision Externalities, Economic Efficiency and Institutional Response. Canadian Public Policy 21(3), 1995, 344-361 (with Walter Hettich).

Click here for the Vietnamese version

· Debt and Tariffs: An empirical investigation of the evolution of revenue systems (with Walter Hettich). Journal of Public Economics 45, 1991, 215 - 242.

· Economic and Political Foundations of Tax Structure (with Walter Hettich). American Economic Review 74(4), 1988, 701 - 712.

· Money and Politics In a Small Open Economy. Public Choice 51, 1986, 221 – 239.

· Vertical Imbalance in the Fiscal Systems of Federal States (with Walter Hettich). Canadian Journal of Economics 19(4), 1986, 745-765.

· The Role of Exchange Rate Flexibility in the International Transmission of Inflation in Long and Shorter Runs: Canada 1953 – 1981. Canadian Journal of Economics 19(1), 1986, 62 - 86.

· Blueprints and Pathways: The Shifting Foundations of Tax Reform (with Walter Hettich). National Tax Journal 47(4), 1985, 883-887.

· A Comment on Papers by Albert Breton and Thomas Courchene. Public Choice 44, 1984, 273-278.

· A Positive Model of Tax Structure (with Walter Hettich). Journal of Public Economics 24, 1984, 67 - 87.

· Some Evidence on the Effect of the Separation of Spending and Taxing Decisions. Journal of Political Economy 91(1),1983,126 - 140.

· Optimal Fiscal Illusion and the Size of Government (with E.G. West). Public Choice 35, 1980, 607-622.

Also, you can view some of my recent research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=75386.

Curriculum Vitae 

· Full CV

· Short Biography

Current Course Outlines

· ECON 5403 - Public Choice

· PADM 6111 - Markets, Prices and Governments  (Fall 2009)

· PADM 6112 - Policy Processes and Institutions II (Winter 2010)

Other Connections

· Canada Research Chairs Web site: www.chairs.gc.ca

· Carleton's Home Page

· School of Public Policy and Administration

· Department of Economics

· The MacOdrum Library

Photos

The photo above is an 'official one' by the university taken about 2002.

The one here was taken by Amalia Winer in 2008 at the top of the wonderful Juvaara staircase in Palazza Madama, an excellent museum

and art gallery in the central square of Torino Italy. We were spending a happy few months in Torino while I was an ICER fellow.

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This page last updated: August 2011.