Strategic Interaction Among Governments: An Overview of Empirical Studies

Abstract

This article provides an overview of empirical models of strategic interaction among governments. To clarify the theoretical roots of such studies, the discussion shows how the empirical frameworks fit into two broad categories: spillover models and resource-flow models. Both types of models generate jurisdictional reaction functions, and the empirical task is to estimate such functions. When the estimated reaction-function slope is nonzero, the presence of strategic interaction is confirmed. The second part of the article reviews three econometric issues relevant to this estimation problem.