Local taxes and the related taxing power are significant determinants of public authority decentralization. Local taxes should primarily serve as an effective source of self-government revenues. Therefore, it is extremely important to identify and comprehend the motives and behaviors of...

Using a cost-capacity gap framework, this paper is the first study to quantify nonschool fiscal disparities across Connecticut municipalities. In the absence of a Uniform Chart of Accounts for municipalities, the paper uses a newly assembled dataset of multi-year local financial records,...

This paper exploits an exogenous reform of the local fiscal equalization scheme in the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia to identify tax mimicking by municipalities in the neighboring state of Lower Saxony. The spatial lag regressions provide no evidence for the existence of strategic...