In 1994 a limit on the growth of property values for tax purposes was imposed in Michigan. One consequence of the newly imposed assessment growth cap was an emerging differential in tax prices between potential new property owners and long-time property owners. The purpose of this paper is to...

We evaluate the effect of relaxing fiscal rules on policy outcomes applying a quasi-experimental research design. In 1999, the Italian central government introduced fiscal rules aimed at imposing fiscal discipline on municipal governments, and in 2001 the rules were relaxed for municipalities...

This paper studies a conditional block grant that Dutch municipalities receive for welfare-to-work programs. Many municipalities do not fully use this grant, although programs are beneficial for them. We argue that municipalities incur expenses to use the grant. If these costs are substantial,...

The view is widespread that there are just two options for the future of the Eurozone – either it is complemented by a fiscal union, or it will fall apart. In this paper, we discuss five possible elements of a fiscal union, of which three are in the centre of the current debate on fiscal union...

A tax shifting from labour income to housing taxation is generally advocated on efficiency grounds. However, most of the empirical literature focuses on the distributional implications of property tax reforms without paying much attention to potential consequences on the labour market. The aim...

Land transfer taxes are a substantial portion of the cost of moving house in many developed countries. Since stamp duties are endogenous with respect to the house price, we create an instrumental variable that is the stamp duty on a property, given that postcode's starting house price and the...

This paper investigates a previously unexplored behavioral response to taxation: whether smokers compensate for higher cigarette taxes by enrolling in food stamps. First, we show theoretically that increases in cigarette taxes can induce food stamp take-up of non-enrolled, eligible smoking...

We study the impact of communication on behavior in a two-stage coordination game with asymmetric payoffs. We test experimentally whether individuals can avoid a head-to-head confrontation by means of coordinated strategies. In particular we analyze whether and how quickly a conflict-avoidance...

We examine the impact of legalized casino gambling, including Indian casinos, on crime. Using county-level data between 1994 and 2009, the impact that casino legalization had on crime is examined. Our results show an increase in crime associated with casinos in some circumstances, but not...

Our paper analyzes historical data for New York State on the percentage of school board budget proposals that are defeated each year and panel data that we collected for individual school districts in the state. We find that changes in state aid have little impact on budget vote success....