Empirical evidence suggests that firms receive rents from locating in economic agglomerations and industry clusters. Using the German local business tax as a testing ground, we empirically investigate whether these agglomeration rents are taxable for local governments. The analysis exploits a...

This paper studies the social desirability of agglomeration, and the efficiency arguments for policy intervention in a simple, analytically tractable new economic geography model. The location pattern emerging as market equilibrium is 'bubble-shaped', i.e. it features dispersion both at high and...

We study a simple model of commuting subsidies with two transport modes. City residents choose where to live and which mode to use. When all land is owned by city residents, one group gains from subsidies what the other loses. With absentee landownership, city residents as a group gain at the...

This paper analyzes subsidies for intracity and intercity commuting in an urban economics framework with two cities and agglomeration externalities, where workers may commute within and between cities. First, commuting subsidies serve to internalize agglomeration externalities: intracity...