The paper studies the impact of market integration on investment incentives in non-competitive industries. It distinguishes between investment in transportation and production cost-reducing technologies. Each domestic firm is controlled by a national regulator in a common market made of two...

We show that space matters in designing the optimal provision of local public goods (LPGs). Geography imposes particular institutional structure of local governments due to the overlapping of market areas associated with different LPGs. The optimum can be decentralized through local governments...

This paper estimates the impact of public investment on regional economic growth and convergence at the NUTS III level in Greece. Using a new database of public expenditure per region for the period 1978-2007, it proposes a model which captures not just the impact of public investment in Greek...

We model residential land use constraints as the outcome of a political economy game between owners of developed and owners of undeveloped land. Land use constraints benefit the former group via increasing property prices but hurt the latter via increasing development costs. In this setting,...

We model residential land use constraints as the outcome of a political economy game between owners of developed and owners of undeveloped land. Land use constraints benefit the former group (via increasing property prices) but hurt the latter (via increasing development costs). More desirable...

China’s economic reforms have resulted in spectacular growth and poverty reduction. However, China’s institutions look ill-suited to achieve such a result, and they indeed suffer from serious shortcomings. To solve "China puzzle" this paper analyses China’s institution - a regionally...

Advocates of fiscal decentralization argue that amongst other benefits, it can increase the efficiency of delivery of government services. This paper is one of the first to evaluate this claim empirically by looking at the association between education expenditure decentralization and the...

This Paper empirically investigates the decisions of US publicly traded firms on where to incorporate. We study the features of states that make them attractive to incorporating firms and the characteristics of firms that determine whether they incorporate in or out of their state of location....

In this Paper, we discuss the main characteristics of European mandatory pension systems and the implications for these systems of increasing factor mobility. In particular, we expect the extent of redistribution (both intra- and intergenerational) in national pension systems to decrease. The...

This Paper explores the theoretical relationship between tax relief for private giving and locational equilibria. Tax relief for giving may receive political support at the local level because of its distributional effects; however, through its effects on public provision choices, such relief...