The paper extends the familiar standard tax competition model for the possibility of cross-border commuting by introducing an additional level of jurisdictions. For separating the impact of landownership and cross-border commuting different schemes of landownership are considered. It will be...

When investigating the effects of federal grants on the behavior of lower-level governments, it is hard to defend the handling of grants as an exogenous factor affecting local governments; federal governments often set grants based on characteristics and performance of local governments. In this...

Estonian municipalities should perform a broad range of functions, while their fiscal resources are often limited and large disparities in fiscal capacity prevail among them. Moreover, the power to regulate fiscal affairs is mostly in the hands of the central government. We discuss how a strict...

The paper studies the effect of additional government revenues on political corruption and on the quality of politicians, both with theory and data. The theory is based on a version of the career concerns model of political agency with endogenous entry of political candidates. The evidence...

Die Beteiligung des Bundes an den Kosten der Unterbringung und Heizung (KdU) erfolgt seit der Einführung des SGB II 2005 mit dem Ziel, die Kommunen finanziell zu entlasten. Seitdem wurde die Bundesbeteiligung in Höhe, Struktur, Berechnung und Zweck beständig verändert. Der Beitrag zeigt, wie...

Wolfgang Renzsch, Universität Magdeburg, weist auf die Probleme bei der Bestimmung des Finanzbedarfs der Länder und Gemeinden hin.

The recent process of political and economic transformation in eastern European countries has not only contributed to the decentralisation of political structure but also significantly enhanced the fiscal autonomy of municipalities belonging to these countries. Although the degree of...

We evaluate the effect of relaxing fiscal rules on policy outcomes applying a quasi-experimental research design. In 1999, the Italian central government introduced fiscal rules aimed at imposing fiscal discipline on municipal governments, and in 2001 the rules were relaxed for municipalities...

Estonian municipalities should perform a broad range of functions, while their fiscal resources are often limited and large disparities in fiscal capacity prevail among them. Moreover, the power to regulate fiscal affairs is mostly in the hands of the central government. We discuss how a strict...

The paper studies the effect of additional government revenues on political corruption and on the quality of politicians, both with theory and data. The theory is based on a version of the career concerns model of political agency with endogenous entry of political candidates. The evidence...