We analyze the mystery calls conducted over a representative sample of Italian municipalities surveying the front office services provided by the One-stop shops (OSSs) for doing business. Mystery calls are phone interviews conducted by callers who pretend to be prospective entrepreneurs wanting...

We test the "yardstick competition" hypothesis by looking at the effects of property tax increases both in the locality and in other comparable jurisdictions on the incumbents' vote. In order to obtain unbiased estimates of the effects of taxes on voting, we account for national political...

This paper investigates the link between local budget outcomes and the intensity of party competition, measured as the margin of victory obtained by the incumbent in the previous local election (i.e. the difference between the vote share and 50%). Two competing hypotheses are tested in the...

This paper investigates the economic and political determinants of the local tax mix using panel data of 289 Flemish municipalities over the period 1995-2002 and estimating a system of five reduced-form tax revenue-share equations (income, property, business, user fees and other own revenues)....

This paper looks for empirical evidence on spillovers occurring between central cities and their suburbs, both on the fiscal side and on the growth of population and output. To test these hypotheses we specify a dynamic model with population and output both in the central city and in the suburbs...