In this article we examine the relationship between property tax rates and tax base growth in southeast Michigan using data for all 152 communities in the five counties surrounding Detroit over the 1983–2002 period. To address endogeneity, we exploit the adoption of Proposal A in 1994, which...

We show that under suitable assumptions the evolutionary stable tax rate in asymmetric tax competition is strictly lower than all tax rates obtained in Nash equilibrium, generalizing in this way a recent result by Sano (Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review 9 (2012), S1–S23) and...

This paper studies how size-induced cost differences in the provision of local public goods affect the efficient level of public spending. Since public goods are non-rival in consumption, the per-capita cost of a given level of public good provision is lower in more populous jurisdictions. We...

In countries with a decentralized provision of higher education, local governments have incentives to levy higher fees on out-of-state students. This paper analyzes the implications of such preferential fee regimes for welfare and the number of students in a federation by means of a theoretical...

We examine a trade model where three countries compete for an exogenous number of firms. In our hub-and-spoke framework, one country is the hub through which all trade with and between spokes takes place. We establish the distribution of industrial activity in the absence of taxes and compare it...

This paper investigates how layoffs due to import competition affect new and existing businesses at a highly local level. To conduct our analysis, we construct measures of import-related layoffs at the ZIP code level and combine these with ZIP code-level establishment counts. We find that...

This paper explores the problems associated with the location choice of newly created establishments at the aggregate level. Much work has been done in this domain, however, several issues arise when analyzing involved phenomena, which scholars have yet to fully explore: 1) addressing the excess...

Variation in regulatory costs over time and across different types of investment projects creates risk for developers who hold land. These so-called implicit costs, which arise as a result of regulatory delay in the land development process, are hypothesized to be potentially large, but...

We use detailed micro-geographic data to document the location patterns of Canadian manufacturing industries and changes in those patterns during the first decade of 2000. Depending on industry classifications and years, 40 to 60% of industries are geographically localized, i.e., are spatially...

This paper, by using annual surveys of manufacturing firms from 1998 to 2005 in China, first documents a positive correlation between industrial agglomeration and firm size, which is previously found in developed economies. Next, by using the instrumental variable estimations, we identify that...