This paper proposes that spatial policies improve economic outcomes by reducing barriers to supplying labour, with heterogeneous effects across demographic groups. Using quasi-experimental variation in Germany's fiscal transfer system, we estimate higher employment elasticities for female...

We experimentally explore public good production levels, and the endogenous formation of network structures to facilitate output sharing, among agents with heterogeneous production costs or valuations. Results corroborate the key theoretical insights of Kinateder & Merlino (2017) characterizing...

Given the prevalence of local public goods, whose broader use is often limited by distance and borders, we propose a potential solution to the free-riding problem by having each participant/beneficiary delegate the public good contribution decision to a non-local intermediary who neither puts in...

We experimentally explore public good production levels, and the endogenous formation of network structures to facilitate output sharing, among agents with heterogeneous production costs or valuations. Results corroborate the key theoretical insights of Kinateder & Merlino (2017) characterizing...

This paper examines the effects of a global club good opportunity on local public good provision when interactions are indefinitely repeated linear public good game setting with a voluntary contribution mechanism. In particular, the study varies the global club entry cost and the local community...

In a circular neighbourhood, each subject has a left and a right neighbour with whom they interact repeatedly in two structurally independent public goods games. We compare an exogenous treatment in which subjects’ positions in the neighbourhood are exogenously reshuffled, to an endogenous...

Cities increasingly address climate change, e.g. by pledging city-level emission reduction targets. This is puzzling for the provision of a global public good: what are city governments' reasons for doing so, and do pledges actually translate into emission reductions? Empirical studies have...

We experimentally explore public good production levels, and the endogenous formation of network structures to facilitate output sharing, among agents with heterogeneous production costs or valuations. Results corroborate the key theoretical insights of Kinateder & Merlino (2017) characterizing...

We extend the ratio equilibrium concept (Kaneko 1977a,b) to local public good economies by defining and analyzing Local Public Good Equilibrium (LPGE). We show existence of LPGE for a far wider class of economies than prior work seeking to identify equilibria for local public good economies. In...

Attempts to measure the capitalization of local taxes into property prices, starting with Oates (1969), have suffered from a lack of local public service controls. We revisit this vast literature with a novel dataset of 947 time-varying local characteristic and public service controls for all...

In this paper, we analyze several local referendums on land development and land-use regulation in the City of Erlangen (Germany) in the period between 2011 and 2018. To identify the positive influence of the travel distance on approval for the development of land, we employ a two-way...

Using newly digitized U.S. city-level data on hospitals, we explore how pandemics alter preferences for healthcare. We find that cities with higher levels of mortality during the Great Influenza of 1918-1919 subsequently expanded hospital capacity by more than cities experiencing less influenza...

We examine the effects of the interaction between lobbying and legislative bargaining on policy formation. Two systems are considered: a US-style congressional system and a European-style parliamentary system. First, we show that the policies generated are not intermediate between policies that...

Recent research shows industrial automation raises labor productivity but also depresses employment and wages in exposed industries and regions. This paper examines the impact of automation on U.S. state and local governments. We find that state and local governments with greater exposure to...

This paper attempts to address two long standing questions in Public Finance: (i) why is the property tax, despite popular complaints about its fairness, the almost exclusive tax instrument used by local governments, and (ii) why do we consistently observe higher levels of governments undermine...

Few empirical strategies have been developed that investigate public provision under majority rule while taking explicit account of the constraints implied by mobility of households. The goal of this paper is to improve our understanding of voting in local communities when neighborhood quality...

This paper uses political reservations for women in India to study the impact of women's leadership on policy decisions. In 1998, one third of all leadership positions of Village Councils in West Bengal were randomly selected to be reserved for a woman: in these councils only women could be...

Property taxes are the primary funding mechanism by which local governments pay for public goods. In the United States, the federal income tax system provides a subsidy to this cost by allowing taxpayers to deduct property taxes on their federal income tax returns. Using local referendum...

Using newly digitized U.S. city-level data on hospitals, we explore how pandemics alter preferences for healthcare. We find that cities with higher levels of mortality during the Great Influenza of 1918-1919 subsequently expanded hospital capacity by more than cities experiencing less influenza...

This paper develops a model of Tiebout sorting with decentrally determined progressive income taxation and a built-in fiscal equalization scheme that redistributes money from richer to poorer regions. Both aspects are central to policy makers: the progressivity for equity reasons and the fiscal...

This paper studies the financing of local public projects. The setting is a community with durable housing, undeveloped land available for new homes, and population turnover. The community invests in a public project that may be financed with a mix of a tax on current residents and a debt issue....

This paper provides some elements to explain the observed takeover in some urban areas of a new kind of elite associated with new economy jobs, also known as "bourgeois bohème" (bobos). This takeover has been associated with greater investment in urban amenities and "clean" means of transport,...