Using a cost-capacity gap framework, this paper is the first study to quantify nonschool fiscal disparities across Connecticut municipalities. In the absence of a Uniform Chart of Accounts for municipalities, the paper uses a newly assembled dataset of multi-year local financial records,...

This paper exploits an exogenous reform of the local fiscal equalization scheme in the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia to identify tax mimicking by municipalities in the neighboring state of Lower Saxony. The spatial lag regressions provide no evidence for the existence of strategic...

Contrary to frequent recommendations of the public finance literature and international institutions, a persistently high tax wedge on labor is observed in Europe. At the same time, the scope for shifting taxes from labor to more growth-friendly revenue sources appears underused in many European...

We examine the working mechanisms and efficiencies of zoning (regulation of floor area ratios and land-use types) and fiscal instruments (tolls, property taxes, and income transfer), and extend the instrument choice theory to include the congestion of road and nonroad infrastructure. We show...

This paper investigates second-best congestion pricing in a monocentric city characterized by distortionary, rigid regulatory mechanisms in the housing market (building height restrictions, zoning and property taxation). The Pigouvian toll is shown to retain its optimality under any setting with...