The purpose of this paper is to assess whether politicians manipulate the timing of tax rate changes in a strategic way to maximize reelection prospects. To do so, we exploit the German local business tax as a testing ground which is set autonomously by German municipalities. As election dates...

This paper assesses the differential impact of the local availability of grammar schools on local employment depending on the openness of a jurisdiction, measured by commuting costs. Commuting costs matter as they influence workers' reservation wage. While the reservation wage depends on public...