January 2025, for the first time in the postwar history of Germany's national parliament, a mainstream political party (the Christian Democratic Union) relied on the support of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) to pass a motion. This prompted intense public debate as many Germans worried that...

Nachdem im Deutschen Bundestag Ende Januar 2025 erstmals eine politische Mehrheit mit den Stimmen der AfD zustande kam, sind viele Deutsche besorgt, dass es bald weitergehende Kooperation mit der AfD geben könnte. Vor diesem Hintergrund untersucht unsere Studie den Stand der Brandmauer in...

We study the reaction of low vs. high-skilled politicians to a reform, approved in Italy in 2011, that introduces stringent individual financial and career sanctions to local administrators who are judged responsible for their municipality’s bankruptcy. To this aim, we leverage exogenous...

In neuen Kooperationen von Kommunen mit Wissenschaft, zivilgesellschaftlichen Organisationen und Bürger*innen erforschten und erprobten in den beiden BMBF-Fördermaßnahmen "Kommunen innovativ" und "REGION.innovativ - Kreislaufwirtschaft" bundesweit 47 Verbundvorhaben innovative Lösungen, mit...

Every year, the State of Regions and Cities report invites us to pause, zoom in, and take stock of where we stand. Europe is often spoken of in broad strokes - the Union, the market, the continent. But the real pulse of Europe is felt locally: in our cities, towns, and regions, where daily life...

Every year, the State of Regions and Cities report invites us to pause, zoom in, and take stock of where we stand. Europe is often spoken of in broad strokes - the Union, the market, the continent. But the real pulse of Europe is felt locally: in our cities, towns, and regions, where daily life...

To fully understand why the European Union is defined by its motto United in diversity, one must look at its regions and cities. This complex network of communities, old and new, full of collective and personal stories, is the beating heart of Europe. As a new political cycle starts for the...

To fully understand why the European Union is defined by its motto United in diversity, one must look at its regions and cities. This complex network of communities, old and new, full of collective and personal stories, is the beating heart of Europe. As a new political cycle starts for the...

Traditional urban policy focuses mainly on redevelopment measures. Germany's Social City programme incorporates urban regeneration with support to local communities in deprived neighbourhoods. We use microdata on household characteristics from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and microdata...

Small-scale federal democracies depend on the active participation of individuals in local political office. Both anecdotal evidence and empirical studies across Western democracies indicate a growing difficulty in recent decades to recruit candidates for municipal offices. This study examines...

This study argues that urbanization changed the relationship between the occupation of candidates running in parliamentary elections and their electoral success. To identify local-level variation in urbanization, we leverage exogenous changes to the boundaries of electoral constituencies in the...

Bedingt durch den Mix aus gestiegenen Zinsen und gestiegenen Baukosten befindet sich der Wohnungsneubau in Deutschland in einer sehr schwierigen Lage. Darüber hinaus wird die Lage erschwert durch Unsicherheiten über zukünftige Mietregulierungen, Klimaschutzmaßnahmen, Stadtentwicklungstrends...

Which Americans experience the worst infrastructure? What are the costs of living with that infrastructure? We measure road roughness throughout America using vertical acceleration data from Uber rides across millions of American roads. Our measure correlates strongly and positively with other...

This study argues that urbanization changed the relationship between the occupation of candidates running in parliamentary elections and their electoral success. To identify local-level variation in urbanization, we leverage exogenous changes to the boundaries of electoral constituencies in the...

According to various growth theories, technology is the main factor driving long-run growth and economic convergence. Yet this process is constrained by the features of a country's institutional background. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between economic convergence and...