After the German reunification, interregional subsidies accounted for approximately four percent of gross fixed capital investment in the new federal states. We show that between 1992 and 2005 infrastructure and (small) business aid had a negative net impact on regional economic growth. This...

Applied econometrics has recently emphasized the identification of causal parameters for policy analysis. This revolution has yet to fully propagate to the field of regional science. We examine the scope for application of the matching approach – part of the modern applied econometrics toolkit...

In Japan, recent low birthrate and aging population have progressively led to a crisis for infrastructure. In particular, the quantity of drainage from homes and factories is remarkably decreasing, along with the decline of economic activity resulting from the overseas move of Japanese...

Urban revitalization programs are widespread used but empirically understudied place-based policy instruments which attract increasing attention in recent years. This study adds to the existing literature by evaluating the selection process which led to the designation of a set of five urban...

Local Development that Money Can't Buy: Italy's Contratti di Programma The paper evaluates the effectiveness of a major Italy's place-based policy (Contratti di Programma), through which the Government endorses and finances an industrialization plan proposed by private firms. By using as...

Recently, the number of state interventions and of firm subsidies has largely increased. However, the possible outcome of such interventions is rather am-biguous. This paper investigates the impact of firm subsidies granted by Ger-man regional policy. The long experiences made with regional...

This paper simulates job and fiscal impacts of Michigan's MEGA tax credit program for job creation. Under plausible assumptions about how such credits affect business location decisions, the net costs per job created of the MEGA program are simulated to be of modest size. The job creation...

Applied econometrics has recently emphasized the identification of causal parameters for policy analysis. This revolution has yet to fully propagate to the field of regional science. We examine the scope for application of the matching approach – part of the modern applied econometrics toolkit...

This paper uses a regression discontinuity design to examine the effects of geographically targeted business incentives on local labor markets. Unlike elsewhere in the United States, enterprise zone (EZ) designations in Texas are determined in part by a cutoff rule based on census block group...

Empirical literature amp;#64257;ndings do not provide a clear-cut interpretation of the effects of public aid on amp;#64257;rms performances. We contribute to this literature analysing the eamp;#64256;ects of public regional subsidies on investment using a new dataset covering all the amp;#64257;rms in the Italian...