This paper is concerned with the question as to what extent population size and density affect the cost of providing public services at the subnational level. Empirical estimates of cost functions are obtained from an analysis of the expenditures of German states disaggregated into about 40...

This paper is concerned with the question as to what extent population size and density affect the cost of providing public services at the subnational level. Empirical estimates of cost functions are obtained from an analysis of the expenditures of German states disaggregated into about 40...

This paper examines whether revenue decentralization and direct external financial supervision affect the incidence and strength of political budget cycles, using a panel of Israeli municipalities during the period 1999-2009. We find that high dependence on central government transfers - as...

In this paper, we study the extent to which ministers engage in regional favoritism. We are the first to provide a comprehensive analysis of a larger set of the governing elite, not just focusing on the primary leader. We hand-collect birthplaces of this governing elite globally. Combining this...

Seit Jahrzehnten werden kommunale Gebietskörperschaften fusioniert, in der Hoffnung auf Kosteneinsparungen und eine höhere Leistungsfähigkeit der Verwaltung. In diesem Beitrag geben Sebastian Blesse und Felix Rösel einen Überblick über die bestehende kausale Evidenz zu den Effekten von...

We compile biographical information on more than 5,000 Prussian politicians and exploit newly digitized administrative data to examine whether landowning and landless elites differ in the extent to which they support health infrastructure projects. Using exogenous variation in soil texture, we...

How did the large asylum-seeker inflow to Germany in 2015 affect concerns about immigration? Using individual-level panel data for the years 2012-2018, I show that after 2015 concerns about immigration increased by about 21 pp. and support for extreme right-wing parties by about 1.7 pp. These...

We analyse a principal-agent relationship in the context of international climate policy. Principals in two countries first decide whether to merge domestic emission permit markets to an international market, then delegate the domestic permit supply to an agent. We find that principals select...

International carbon markets are frequently propagated as an efficient instrument for reducing CO2 emissions. We argue that such markets, despite their desirable efficiency properties, might not be in the best interest of governments who are guided by strategic considerations in negotiations. We...

We estimate the effects of R&D on firms' credit ratings and on financial distress. The main purpose is the comparison of firms in Western Germany and Eastern Germany as a transitional economy. Innovative activity has a positive impact on firm value proxied by ratings in Western Germany, but a...