Die Europäische Union entwickelt sich immer stärker in Richtung einer zusätzlichen föderalen Ebene neben Bund, Ländern und Gemeinden. Ihre Aufgaben, Ausgaben und Einnahmen und somit der EU-Haushalt und der dazugehörige Mehrjährige Finanzrahmen sind für ihre Arbeit zentral. Derzeit wird...

We study political determinants of municipality amalgamations during a boundary reform in the German state of Brandenburg, which reduced the number of municipalities from 1,489 to 421. The analysis is conducted using data on the political decision makers as well as fiscal and socio-economic...

This paper analyses the case of a local secession, i.e. the birth of a new local jurisdiction by separation from an existing one. We present a stylized model in which society is composed of heterogeneous groups and individuals have an homophily bias. The model predicts that: i) separations, such...

Nach der Reform ist vor der Reform. Es ist mittlerweile unbestritten, dass es nach Abschluss der Föderalis - musreform II im Jahr 2009 einen weiteren Anlauf zur Reform der bundesstaatlichen Finanzordnung geben wird. Ausgehend von der These, dass es im Bundesstaat zwangsläufig ein Geflecht an...

This paper explores the interdependency of political institutions from the voter's perspective. Specifically, we are interested in: (1) Does the partisan identity of the mayor influence the voter's decision in the subsequent town council election?; (2) Does this partisan identity influence the...

This paper estimates the effect of political power on tax policies in municipal councils under a proportional election system. The main challenge in estimating the causal effect of parties on policy is to isolate the effect of power from underlying voter preferences and the selection effect of...

This paper explores the interdependency of political institutions from the voter's perspective. Specifically, we are interested in three questions: (1) Does the partisan identity of the local mayor influence the voter's decision in the subsequent town council election?; (2) Does this partisan...

This paper provides empirical evidence on the party incumbency advantage in mayoral elections in Germany. Using a regression discontinuity design on a data set of about 25,000 elections, I estimate a causal incumbency effect of 38-40 percentage points in the probability of winning the next mayor...