In a Regression Kink (RK) design with a finite sample, a confounding smooth nonlinear relationship between an assignment variable and an outcome variable around a threshold can be spuriously picked up as a kink and result in a biased estimate. In order to investigate how well RK designs handle...

This paper first formulates a model of how the politicians in a local government collectively lobby to raise intergovernmental grants to their local government. The model identifies a relationship between council size and grants received. I then study this relationship empirically using the...

In this paper, we test one of the fundamental assumptions in the tax competition literature, namely, that a country's taxable income depends on the tax policies pursued in the domestic and in neighbouring countries. Based on a panel of annual data of 14 Western European countries spanning the...

We analyze a model where the federal government provides risk sharing arrangements to municipalities investing in a local public good. The risk sharing arrangements are an income equalization system and a system allowing for a soft budget constraint, i.e., a bailout. Our main result is that a...

Natural disasters bring significant economic damages globally. Governmental-initiated disaster reliefs, especially disaster relief transfers from the central government to local regions, play an important role of reducing damage and help economic recovery for local regions. We use typhoon...