In rural areas, small and medium-sized municipalities are challenged by demographic change and intensified competition for capital and high-skilled labor. Inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) is often regarded as a significant element of a strategy to meet these challenges. Based on a survey in...

Inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) is promoted as a way in which small, fiscally weak munic-ipalities can cope with intensified interregional competition and demographic change. We pro-vide first evidence on citizens' support for IMC using survey data from rural Germany. We cover different fields...

We analyze data from a survey among local council members in 59 German municipali-ties. We ask council members whether their home municipality should cooperate with neigh-boring municipalities in the provision of public services like childcare or road maintenance. Their answers are clearly...

We analyze the factors driving the emergence of inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) in tasks of internal administration in West-Germany between 2001 and 2014. In line with the Institutional Collective Action Approach, we find similarities in political ideology to foster cooperation. Cost pressure...

An increasing number of municipalities cooperates in the field of economic development. In this paper, we focus on a specific instrument in this field, namely the development of joint business parks. We apply a hazard model to data from West-German municipalities between 2000 and 2015. We find...

Zusammenfassung Die Bedeutung von Transaktionskosten für die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung war in den letzten Jahrzehnten Gegenstand zahlreicher ökonomischer Forschungsansätze. Nur ein sehr kleiner Teil davon wählte eine empirische Herangehensweise. Dieser Aufsatz beginnt mit einem kurzen...

We ask whether inter-municipal cooperation serve as a platform by which municipalities coor-dinate tax policies and reduce the intensity of tax competition. In this paper, we focus on inter-municipal cooperation in form of inter-local industrial parks. We apply the generalized syn-thetic control...

We use a hazard model to identify the factors that drive the emergence of inter-municipal cooperation (IMC). We focus on IMC in tasks of internal administration in West-Germany be-tween 2001 and 2014 - tasks where IMC may generate economies of scale while regional spill-overs are negligible. Our...

We analyze the decision of local governments to deploy social media. We argue that – by deploying social media – governments send a signal of modernity, transparency and openness for dialogue to their citizens. We apply a hazard model to panel data on municipalities in the German state of...

This contribution empirically explores the drivers of labour market reform acceptance for the individual level in Germany. For that purpose we make use of the representative German General Social Survey (ALLBUS). This survey offers data to which extent individuals support benefit cuts, longer...