Spatial regression models incorporating non-stationarity in the regression coefficients are popular. We propose a spatial variant of the Smooth Transition AutoRegressive (STAR) model that is more parsimonious than commonly used approaches and endogenously determines the extent of spatial...

We analyze the impact of fiscal decentralization on U.S. county population, employment, and real income growth. Our findings suggest that government organization matters for local economic growth, but that the impacts vary by government unit and by economic indicator. We find that single-purpose...

Spatial convergence analysis of tax transfers from the Robin Hood Act - One alleges that the Robin Hood Act has allowed one better distribution of the values of ICMS to municipalities of the state of Minas Gerais. The paper is aimed at verifying if the Robin Hood Act has actually revealed a...

Economists expect positive returns to investments in infrastructure. However a project with higher national returns might have less favorable effects on a regional level than the alternative. Therefore new infrastructure should also be assessed on a regional level, but econom(etr)ic evalua tion...

Research on ethno-linguistic ties has so far mostly focused on domestic measures of ethno-linguistic heterogeneity. Little attention has been given to the possibility that ethno-linguistic relations between countries may affect out- comes, particularly in a spatial econometric context. In this...

The thesis consists of an introductory part and three self-contained papers. <p> Paper [I] studies the determinants of the differences in expenditure on services for functionally impaired individuals among municipalities in Sweden. A spatial autoregressive model is used in order to test whether the...</p>

We empirically compare the accuracy and precision of representative Least Squares, Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian methods of estimation. Using an approach similar to the jackknife, each method is repeatedly applied to subsamples of a data set on the property market in Bogotá, Colombia to...

Firms' tax planning decisions, similar to their other operational decisions, are made in a competitive environment. Various stakeholders observe the tax payments and evaluate these against the relevant peer group, which creates interdependencies in the tax planning activities of firms....

More than one third of the European Union's total budget is spent on socalled Cohesion Policy via the structural funds. Its main purpose is to promote the development of the EU and to support convergence between the levels of development of the various European regions. Investigating the impact...

The use of the K-functions (Ripley, 1977) has become recently popular in the analysis of the spatial pattern of firms. It was first introduced in the economic literature by Arbia and Espa (1996) and then popularized by Marcon and Puech (2003), Quah and Simpson (2003), Duranton and Overman (2005)...