Showing 1 - 10 of 30
We study political determinants of municipality amalgamations during a boundary reform in the German state of Brandenburg, which reduced the number of municipalities from 1,489 to 421. The analysis is conducted using data on the political decision makers as well as fiscal and socio-economic...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011245937
This paper explores the interdependency of political institutions from the voter's perspective. Specifically, we are interested in three questions: (1) Does the partisan identity of the local mayor influence the voter's decision in the subsequent town council election?; (2) Does this partisan...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10009021616
This paper provides empirical evidence on the party incumbency advantage in mayoral elections in Germany. Using a regression discontinuity design on a data set of about 25,000 elections, I estimate a causal incumbency effect of 38-40 percentage points in the probability of winning the next mayor...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10009251356
Theoretical work based on social identity theory and in-group favoritism predicts that increased population diversity (e.g., due to immigration) reduces support for redistributive public policies. In this article, we add to the empirical literature testing this prediction in three ways. First,...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010896168
This paper estimates the effect of political power on tax policies in municipal councils under a proportional election system. The main challenge in estimating the causal effect of parties on policy is to isolate the effect of power from underlying voter preferences and the selection effect of...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010896169
Do incumbents in an election have an advantage, and if so, are these advantages heterogeneous across parties or government and opposition? We first present a theoretical discussion on the possible heterogeneity of incumbency effects in a pure two-party system. Then, we estimate the incumbency...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10009399834
How do new and foreign firms achieve superior productivity? Do they conduct more and better R&D? Or do they distinguish themselves through computerization and organizational capital? We investigate the determinants of and returns to several types of investment, using a panel of over 40,000...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008555913
The aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of revenue decentralization on the provision of infrastructure at the … sub-national level. We estimate the effects of revenue decentralization and earmarked grant financing on the level of sub … revenue decentralization and not investment in redistribution. However, the effect of revenue decentralization is lower the …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011128834
In many federations, fiscal equalization schemes soften fiscal imbalances across the member states. Such schemes usually imply that the member states internalize only a small fraction of the additional tax revenue from an expansion of the state-specific tax bases, while the remainder of the...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011128867
This note studies the choice of tax structure in a majority voting model with tax competition. Regions may tax mobile capital or immobile labor. Individuals differ with respect to their relative endowments of labor and capital. Even though a lump sum tax is available, the equilibrium capital tax...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10004963839