In this paper we look at the relative merits of two capacity utilization regimes in the merchant electricity transmission network: Must offer (Mo) where the entire capacity installed is made available for transmission and Non Must Offer (NMo) where some capacity could be withheld. We look at two...

This paper analyses empirically how differences in local taxes affect the intraregional location of new manufacturing plants. These effects are examined within the random profit maximization framework while accounting for the presence of different types of agglomeration economies (localization/...

The objective of this paper is to analyse the influence of agglomeration economies on location decisions taken by new firms inside metropolitan areas. As we assume that these economies differ according to firms’ level of technology, our sample comprises new firms from high, intermediate and...

When a major technological innovation spreads out in both high-tech and middle/low-tech industries, new clusters appear, develop and grow at the expenses of "older" historical industrial sites. The literature has, under various labels, recognised three main stages of cluster development: an...

The aim of this paper is to classify the firms operating in the European telecommunications market according to their degree of internationalization and market knowledge, and to test the effects of this classification and the existence of access regulation on infrastructure investment in...

In this paper we show that the double Pareto lognormal (DPLN) parameterization provides an excellent fit to the overall US city size distribution, regardless of whether “cities” are administratively defined Census places or economically defined area clusters. We then consider an economic...

Human capital is one of the most important channels via which universities positively affect regional development. This paper analyzes the relationship between university characteristics and graduation rates, and the role of regional characteristics in this process. We assemble a dataset for the...

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether politicians manipulate the timing of tax rate changes in a strategic way to maximize reelection prospects. To do so, we exploit the German local business tax as a testing ground which is set autonomously by German municipalities. As election dates...

Tax auditing parameters have been largely overlooked by the literature as policy-making instruments of any relevance; however, enforcement strategies are critical elements of the tax burden. In this paper we show that, in a federal framework, tax auditing policies can serve as additional tools for...

This paper analyzes the impact of ideology on the size of US state governments. Following Pickering and Rockey (2011) this impact is hypothesized to increase with mean state income. This idea is tested using state-level ideology data derived from the voting behavior of state congressional...