Small enterprises are a key source of employment, economic growth, innovation and productivity in advanced as well as emerging economies and as such they are a crucial sector of an economy. Access to financing plays an important role for the small enterprise sector in any economy. Based on...

This paper discusses the use of urban policy instruments in Brazil, brought by the City Statute (CS) a federal law passed in 2001 ("Estatuto da Cidade" in Portuguese), as a tool of analysis of municipal master plans (MP). The main argument of this research is that the municipal urban policy...

Nach über 20 Jahren Diskussionen liegen derzeit drei Modelle zur Reform der Grundsteuer vor. Sie basieren auf wert- und flächenbezogenen Bemessungsgrundlagen sowie einer Kombination aus beiden. Die Rechnungen zum regionalen Aufkommen belegen, dass die wertbasierten Modelle mit der höheren...

State borders create a discontinuous tax treatment of retail sales. In a Nash game, local tax rates will be higher on the low-state-tax side of a border. Local taxes will decrease from the nearest high-tax border and increase from the low-tax border. Using driving time from state borders and all...

We use data from credit reports and deed records to better understand the extent to which second liens contributed to the housing crisis by allowing buyers to purchase homes with small down-payments. At the top of the housing market, second liens were quite prevalent: As many as 45 percent of...

Die Einheitswerte für Immobilien, auf die sich die Grundsteuer bezieht, wurden vom Bundesfinanzhof als verzerrend angesehen. Eine Arbeitsgruppe der Finanzminister beschäftigt sich schon seit Anfang 2010 mit diesem Problem. Dabei haben sich drei Modelle herauskristallisiert, die den Boden- und...

Policy researchers often have to estimate the future effect of imposing a policy in a particular location. There is often evidence on the effects of similar policies in other jurisdictions, but no information on the effects of the policy in the jurisdiction in question. And the policy may have...

Phoenix and neighboring municipalities, like many in the South and West, pursued a growth strategy based on annexation in the decades after World War II. This paper explores the link between annexation and competition for tax revenues. After discussing arguments for annexation, it traces the...

This paper exploits the deregulation of the European aviation market as a quasi-natural experiment to examine if the expansion of regional airports in Germany caused positive spillover effects on the surrounding economy. Such spillovers might justify the heavy subsidies which are transferred to...

Greek governments have supported investments to rural areas financially either by covering part of the investment and/or offering advantages with respect to interest rate loans or tax advantages. This support had been tendered either by nationally financed programs, called Development Laws, or...