Optimal taxation and fiscal constitution

Assuming a world with excessive taxes, the focuses of this paper are political mechanisms that ensure efficiency enhancing restraints on taxes. In particular, it is shown that supermajority requirements to approve tax increases, as currently used in some US states, is the means of attaining this objective. Their relationship to another such mechanism prevalent in earlier centuries, that of franchise restrictions, is discussed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.