Redistributive grants schemes, such as fiscal equalization, are a common characteristic of local public finance in several countries. However, large and small jurisdictions are treated differently by the respective fiscal equalization schemes that often tend to favour larger jurisdictions. This...

Renewable energy can become a fraction of the cost of burning carbon to generate electricity in communities that use money that has a usage charge described as "demurrage". As with Islamic banking, demurrage money eliminates discounting future values from the ability of earning interest today....

Rational and forward-looking individuals know that government debts today mean higher taxes in the future. The Ricardian equivalence at the national level implies that the burden of the debt cannot be shifted between generations as intergenerational transfers allow the future generation to pay...

We specify a flexible general framework of the effect of municipality size on the provision of an excludable public good. The model accounts for demand side factors which affect the quality of the public good. Previous literature has recognized that municipality size should have a non-linear...

We investigate the robustness of 31 community specific explanatory variables for house prices in the Swiss metropolitan area of Zurich using Bayesian Model Averaging. The main variables which capitalize with a high posterior probability are location specific characteristics, municipal taxes and...

This paper examines how changes to the municipal mergers affect municipal budget taxes. The main purpose of merging municipalities is to build more efficient and effective local governments with greater financial capacities by improving effectiveness of municipalities. The structure and...

The technocratic interventions in agrarian economy, since late 1960s, have consolidated the position of large landowners and farmers in north western India, and made them prosperous. However, there was virtually no land market in this rural society up till now; land was possessed and transferred...

This paper investigates optimal tax policy when economic conditions are uncertain, creating risk in tax revenues. Optimal taxation with uncertainty balances costs from volatility and deadweight loss. Tax policy affects volatility through two channels; spreading risk between public and private...

This article argues that New York municipalities should integrate land banks into the tax enforcement process to break the unhealthy cycle perpetuated by real estate and lien speculators. By transferring all tax liens and foreclosed properties to local land banks, municipalities can generate an...

The shrinking population during the break-down, adaptation and recovery phase in Estonian social and political development enforces municipal competition among the municipalities. Competition for inhabitants is embedded in regional competition showing horizontal and vertical competition...