Considering data for individual earnings we show that the local subsidization of cultural activities in Germany exerts effects on the wage distribution in the sense that these subsidies tend to reduce the wage gap between those with higher and less education. These findings motivate a...

This paper explores the conditions under which decentralization and fiscal competition lead to a policy of subsidizing cultural activities. A theoretical analysis discusses these subsidies as a form of local public good provision which makes a city more attractive to highly educated individuals....

Applied general equilibrium models have become a standard tool for the analysis of structural policies in many countries and international research organisations. Their use has been prompted by both developments in economics, but also on the growing need for quantitative policy analysis. The...

Despite substantial regional expenditures at both national and community level, European regional policies do not appear to deliver. The evidence suggests that neither efficiency gains nor reduced regional inequalities are attained. If there is any positive impact at all, then it is at the most...

In the context of the changes that have occurred in the Romanian society, the public authorities are required to play a coordinating role in providing the framework for a sustainable and balanced development of the national territory, and to ensure the quality of life of the citizens. In order...

This Paper analyses industrial policy in a high wage open economy hosting an agglomeration consisting of vertically linked upstream and downstream firms. We show that optimal policy towards upstream industries typically differ from the optimal policy towards downstream industries....

We develop a discrete or finite household model with congestable local public goods where the level of provision, the number of facilities and their locations are all endogenously determined in a purely normative context. We prove the existence of an equal-treatment identical-provision second...

This paper analyzes the impact of voter-approved school bond issues on school district balance sheets, local housing prices, and student achievement. We draw on the unique characteristics of California's system of school finance to obtain clean identification of bonds' causal effects, comparing...

Economic theories of systems of cities explain why production and consumption activities are concentrated in a number of urban areas of different sizes and industrial composition rather than uniformly distributed in space. These theories have been successively influenced by four paradigms: i)...

This chapter provides a survey of recent developments of positive as well as normative theories of city systems. Static theory of city system emphasizes the factors that result in the formation of cities through the interaction between two opposing forces: i) agglomeration economy; ii)...