Limited access to credit has been identified as a major constraint to sustainable municipal development, but empirical evidence on the effectiveness of credit operations remains inconclusive. This paper evaluates the impact of federal government guaranteed loans on public expenditures. Using...

This study examines the long-term link between in-utero cigarette taxes and adult prenatal smoking. We use U.S. birth certificate records to demonstrate that exposure to higher in-utero cigarette taxes (over 1965-2001) reduces later-life adult pre-pregnancy and prenatal smoking. We also show...

Diese Studie diskutiert die Rolle der österreichischen Gemeinden im Hinblick auf Bildung, Pflege und Klima vor dem Hintergrund der Einnahmen- und Ausgabenentwicklung und des Finanzausgleichs. Die Covid-19-Krise wirkt sich negativ auf die Gemeindefinanzen aus, die Steuerreform verursacht...

Recent analyses of intergenerational mobility show that investments in children pay big dividends. The priority of resources in early childhood also affects the working of the local economy. Geographic variation in child care services motivates location of families and thereby influences housing...

Stefanie Gäbler prepared this study while she was working at the ifo Center for Public Finance and Political Economy. The study was completed in March 2020 and accepted as doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It consists of six distinct empirical essays...

An attempt is made in this paper to examine the impacts of government spending on human capital on human development indicators like healthcare outcomes, education achievements and increase in national income in Namibia using time series data from 1980 to 2015. The analysis reveals a significant...

In this paper, we estimate the efficiency of Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in Ghana, and investigate the impact of fiscal decentralization on the efficiency of local public goods and services delivery by MMDAs. Using data from composite budgets of all 216 MMDAs, we...

This short paper estimates the state and local fiscal benefits of the Nurse Family Partnership (NFP) program. NFP provides nurse home visiting services to low-income first-time mothers. In addition to social benefits, NFP provides state and local fiscal benefits by reducing costs of social...

The potential efficacy of centralized school choice systems in reducing inequalities in access to high-quality schools may be hindered by informational frictions. In this paper, we experimentally evaluate a low-cost information intervention in the centralized school admission system (Matrícula...