We study the fiscal policy reactions of municipalities in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia to an unanticipated spending shock. The implementation of a horizontal transfer system led to additional contributions for selected municipalities. Using the quasi-random assignment, we examine...

The government fragmentation hypothesis (GFH) states that coalition governments spend more than single-party governments due to an underlying common pool problem. Using a large panel data set on 604 local governments in the German state of Baden-Württemberg for the 1994-2014 period, I test the...

We study the fiscal and tax response to intergovernmental grants, exploiting quasi-experimental variation within Germany’s fiscal equalization scheme triggered by Census revisions of official population counts. Municipal budgets do not adjust instantly. Instead, spending and investments adapt...

We study the fiscal and tax response to intergovernmental grants, exploiting quasi-experimental variation within Germany's fiscal equalization scheme triggered by Census revisions of official population counts. Municipal budgets do not adjust instantly. Instead, spending and investments adapt...

The main purpose of this article is analysis of the relationship between local tax and fee policies in Poland. We argue that local authorities have similar and significant discretion over tax and fee policy and, therefore, they can be analysed in a similar way. Links between these policies are...

This paper examines the relationship between sequential income tax adoptions and interstate migration in US states between 1900 and 1930. Exploiting the sequential introduction of personal and corporate state income taxes, we analyze matched full-count US census data to explore the causal links...