We study political determinants of municipality amalgamations during a boundary reform in the German state of Brandenburg, which reduced the number of municipalities from 1,489 to 421. The analysis is conducted using an extensive data set on the political decision makers as well as fiscal and...

The paper uses the consolidation of municipalities brought about by the Fascist dictatorship in Italy during the 1920s to gauge the role of the size of local jurisdictions for economic development. It finds that the consolidation was associated with relevant net welfare gains for the communities...

We analyze within a spatial endogenous growth setting the impact of public policy coordination on regional inequality. Governments in each of the two symmetric regions provide a local public input that becomes globally effective due to integration. Micro-foundation of governmental behavior is...

Recent research suggests that households would increase their electricity consumption in the aftermath of installing photovoltaics (PV) panels, a behavioral change commonly referred to as the solar rebound. Drawing on panel data originating from the German Residential Energy Consumption Survey...

The main purpose of this paper is to estimate and evaluate the social costs of highways in Japan. In general, with more people concerned about protecting the environment at both local and global levels, dependence on vehicular transportation in cities has brought about problems. Too much...