We examine the welfare effects of provision of local public goods in an empirically relevant setting using a multi-community model with mobile and heterogeneous households, and with flexible housing supplies. We characterize the first-best allocation and show efficiency can be implemented with...

Growth and jobs are top concerns for policy makers confronting difficult economic conditions in many OECD countries. Sub-national governments are important contributors to national growth, but in many cases their economies are struggling as well. Faced with tight fiscal conditions, all levels of...

The ability of sub national governments to “better spend”, by identifying relevant paths for territorial competitiveness and effective delivery of public services, is largely enshrined in their institutional background. Rather than isolated actors, sub national authorities and central...

Over 2008-11, most OECD countries switched from highly expansive fiscal policies to the tightest in decades. During the crisis and subsequent recession in 2008-09, many OECD and G20 countries implemented stimulus packages, which in some cases amounted to 4% or more of GDP. On the expenditure...

Contracts are a key tool for vertical co-ordination, enabling dialogue and capacity building across levels of government. They are frequently used for regional development policy in OECD and non-OECD countries. Drawing on contract theory and a variety of national experiences, this paper...

Growth and jobs are top concerns for policy makers confronting difficult economic conditions in many OECD countries. Sub-national governments are important contributors to national growth, but in many cases their economies are struggling as well. Faced with tight fiscal conditions, all levels of...

Theoretically, federal transfers that make household location decisions efficient should ignore local cost differences, subsidize positive externalities, and offset differences in federal-tax payments and local taxes levied on non-residents, but not local tax revenues from residents. Transfers...

In the United States, workers in cities offering above-average wages - cities with high productivity, low quality-of-life, or inefficient housing sectors - pay 30 percent more in federal taxes than otherwise identical workers in cities offering below-average wages. According to simulation...

Conventional hedonic techniques for estimating the value of local amenities rely on the assumption that households move freely among locations. We show that when moving is costly, the variation in housing prices and wages across locations may no longer reflect the value of differences in local...