The present work looks at the relationship between institutional structure and economic performance at the regional level. The work focuses on one particular aspect, the number of municipalities in a given region (municipal fragmentation) and the impact on regional development measured as GDP...

The present work investigates the relationship between municipal fragmentation and regional per capita GDP growth rate, using a panel of OECD TL2 regions in the period 1996-2011. According to the fiscal decentralisation literature, fragmentation should enhance growth as local government closer...

Solow (1956) has made an essential contribution to the Neo-classical growth approach through the economic convergence hypothesis. It assumes that poorer countries’ or regions’ per capita incomes tend to grow at faster rates than the richer ones. Convergence could occur either among a group...

Using a newly constructed data panel on U.S. locality attributes, this paper sketches four sets of empirical facts on economic growth across U.S. counties. A first set of facts focuses on the time series and cross-correlation properties of local economic growth as measured by net migration, per...

This paper argues that obstruction of agency, intention and interest is a weakness in institutional studies in geography. There is a need to systematically anchor a role for agency in institutionally oriented combinatorial knowledge dynamics studies, and thus to reach beyond snapshots of...

In this paper we study the impact of regulatory complexity, a measure of institutional quality, on the GDP, on per capita income and on the growth rate of the Italian regions. For comparative reasons we also use the duration of civil disputes as an indicator of institutional quality. From the...

Stefanie Gäbler prepared this study while she was working at the ifo Center for Public Finance and Political Economy. The study was completed in March 2020 and accepted as doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It consists of six distinct empirical essays...

The political business cycle theories describe that election-motivated politicians manipulate economic policy-making. Election cycles occur in many fiscal variables, for example tax rates. I examine whether electoral motives influence communal fees in Germany. Fees have to be paid for the use of...

We analyze the decision of local governments to deploy social media. We argue that - by deploying social media - governments send a signal of modernity, transparency and openness for dialogue to their citizens. We apply a hazard model to panel data on municipalities in the German state of Hesse...

We estimate the causal effect of direct elections on the economic performance of politicians. Candidates running in direct elections to head local governments in the German state of Brandenburg need an absolute majority, and votes for the winner must represent at least 15% of eligible voters. If...