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...

This paper analyses whether the different powers and resources at the disposal of local and regional governments across Europe deliver greater satisfaction with political institutions and lead to greater personal happiness. The analysis uses microdata from the four available waves of the...

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...

Income taxation may affect the regional allocation of population when prices vary over space. Our contribution is to compare different income tax systems in a migration equilibrium model for Norway using improved measure of regional wage differences. We apply register data of individual wages...

The paper aims at examining Russian sub-state units' Arctic 'foreign policies'. The paper starts from discussing which theories are applicable to explaining the phenomenon of paradiplomacy. Particularly, the paper focuses on the following strategies/methods of paradiplomacy: making direct...

The paper aims at contributing to the body of knowledge referred to Public Administrations co-operation. In particular, the research is focused on Local Public Administration (LPA), intensely influenced by the global economic crisis. The study regards to how LPAs could reach more efficiency and...

The paper is devoted to problems of ensuring balanced and sustainable development of a very specific and important metropolitan region of the Russian Federation - the region of St Petersburg and surrounding it Leningrad Oblast. St.Petersburg (City) and Leningrad Oblast (Region) are both...

This paper analyzes the relationships between the degree of decentralization of public policy and the emergence of horizontal strategic interactions. We analyze the structural funds allocation process in determining how the structure of governance of cohesion policy a ects the development of...