Recent empirical literature finds that greater economic freedom at the state level tends to have a positive effect on entrepreneurial activity and economic growth generally. However, state boundaries are relatively arbitrary, and the level of economic freedom in local economies can vary widely...

Geoffrey Brennan and James M. Buchanan, in their 1980 book The Power to Tax, hypothesize that “the potential for fiscal exploitation varies inversely with the number of competing governmental units in the inclusive territory.” This paper tests that theory at the local level using data for US...

This paper contributes to the literature on the effect of individual-level characteristics on urban location choice by examining whether young people aged 25-34 with a bachelor's degree or higher are more likely to live in central cities in 2011 than in 1990. When I control for individual-level...