Recent studies suggest a considerable amount of horizontal strategic interaction amongst governments exists. The empirical approach in these studies typically relies on estimating reaction functions in a uni-dimensional policy framework, where a nonzero slope estimate suggests strategic...

The relationship between decentralization and the quality of governments is one of the core issues of decentralization studies. This paper aims to make two contributions to this research. Firstly, we conduct an empirical analysis at the local level, covering 174 regions across the European...

The objective of this paper is to review the richness of regional and urban modeling literature and case studies with an emphasis on cellular automata. It aims at demonstrating its usefulness for real public policy use. This work is aimed at those with a practical approach at public policies who...

There is much evidence against the so-called too big to fail hypothesis in the case of bailouts to sub-national governments. We look at a model where districts of different size provide local public goods with positive spillovers. Matching grants of a central government can induce...

Public sector activities are often neglected in the economic approaches used to analyze the driving forces behind urban growth. The institutional status of a regional capital is a crucial aspect of public sector activities. This paper reports on a quasi-natural experiment on county towns in East...

Romanian SMEs can directly benefit from the Sectoral Operational Programme 'Increase of Economic Competitiveness' (SOP IEC) and some parts of the Regional Operational Programme (ROP) in the period 2007 2013. Research commissioned by the Directorate General for Regional Policy of the European...

This paper develops a model of local income tax competition with a progressive tax scheme and a built-in fiscal equalization scheme. Both aspects are central to policy makers: The progressivity for equity reasons, and the fiscal equalization to prevent a race to the bottom and to limit the...

Income and property taxation are among the most prevalent policy instruments to finance local expenditure in countries with a high degree of decentralization. However, little is known about their relative efficiency and redistributive properties. This paper compares both tax instruments within...

There is much evidence against the so-called "too big to fail" hypothesis in the case of bailouts to sub-national governments. We look at a model where districts of different size provide local public goods with positive spillovers. Matching grants of a central government can induce...

There is much evidence against the so-called too big to fail hypothesis in the case of bailouts to sub-national governments. We look at a model where districts of different size provide local public goods with positive spillovers. Matching grants of a central government can induce...