This article aims to investigate the origin of unbalances and tensions between central and subnational governments concerned to the allocation of resources and decentralization of public policies. One argue that Brazilian federalism in recent years (2000-2012) has establishing a high level of...

The literature on China indicates that the concentration of economic activities in China is less than in other industrialized countries. Institutional limits are largely held responsible for this finding (e.g. the Hukou system); firms and workers are not able to take full advantage of the...

The Spanish labour market disproportionately booms in expansions and bursts in recessions; meanwhile, its regions' relative position persists: those with the highest unemployment rates in 1996 were also in the worse position in 2012. To examine this twofold feature, we apply Blanchard and Katz's...

This paper analyzes the impact of the German autobahn net on the economic performance of German regions. To address endogeneity and reverse causation problems, we use historical instrument variables, i.e. a plan of the railroad net in 1890 and a plan of the autobahn net in 1937. We find a...

Die derzeit stattfindenden Verhandlungen zwischen dem Bund und den Ländern haben die Neuordnung der Finanzbeziehungen zum Ziel. Damit wäre der Zeitpunkt da, eine offene und sachliche Diskussion über die Kernfrage des deutschen Finanzföderalismus und zugleich über den Auftrag des...

The southern European periphery suffered a severe setback in its catching-up process versus Western Europe after the financial crisis with GDP dropping by 10% between 2008 and 2012 and unemployment increasing to 20% for Greece, Portugal and Spain. We analyze first the reason for this setback,...

This paper presents a Cournot oligopoly model with R&D spillovers both within and across industries. The aim is to provide an appropri- ate theoretical foundation for three different hypotheses regarding the impact of the local production structure on innovation and output, as well as addressing...

We examine day-to-day fluctuations in worker-level output over 15 months for a panel of 98 manufacturing workers at a plant located in an industrial city in Hebei province, north China. Long-term workers earn piece-rate wages, with no base pay or minimum pay, for homogeneous tasks performed over...

This study investigates the effect of participative political institutions (PPIs) that emerged in many central European cities from the late 13th century. The empirical analysis of the paper is based on newly compiled long-run data for the existence of different types of PPIs in 104 cities in...