I present the first database of historical local population figures for all Germany. The German Local Population Database (GPOP) includes total population in 1871, 1910, 1939, 1946, 1961, 1987, 1996, 2011, and 2019 for the universe of all German municipalities, counties, and states at consistent...

We discover and document errors in public use microdata samples ("PUMS files") of the 2000 Census, the 2003-2006 American Community Survey, and the 2004-2009 Current Population Survey. For women and men ages 65 and older, age- and sex-specific population estimates generated from the PUMS files...

We study local government incentives to misreport the information required to implement a formula grant. We focus specifically on population, in theory the easiest variable for the grantor to verify. We analyze the Spanish case and show how a switch from the use of census to registered...

Measuring effective tax rates using tax revenue data is attractive, given that revenues collected capture the net effect of tax provisions and taxpayer behaviour that are difficult to model. Yet reliance on aggregate tax and income data requires restrictive assumptions and significantly limits...

We model the optimal reaction of a public PAYG pension system to demographic shocks. We compare the ex-ante first best and second best solution of a Ramsey planner with full commitment to the outcome under simple third best rules that mimic the pension systems observed in the real world. The...

We develop a simple model of fiscal competition among ageing municipalities. When ageing advances, gerontocracies and social planners gradually substitute publicly provided goods aimed at the mobile young population for publicly provided goods for the elderly. This substitution process does not...

Why do people have kids in developed societies? We propose an empirical test of two alternative theories - children as "consumptionʺ vs. "investmentʺ good. We use as a natural experiment the Italian pension reforms of the 90s that introduced a clear discontinuity in the treatment across...