In this paper we leverage a national panel of US municipalities to show that a pair of heuristics identified from the behavioral economics literature, anchoring and the bandwagon effect, help to explain the number of years of expenses municipalities hold in reserve. We build our empirical case...

When investigating the effects of federal grants on the behavior of lower-level governments, it is hard to defend the handling of grants as an exogenous factor affecting local governments; federal governments often set grants based on characteristics and performance of local governments. In this...

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) has become an established tool in comparative analyses of efficiency strategies in both the public and the private sector. The aim of this paper is to present and apply a newly developed, adjusted DEA model – emerging from a blend of a Distance Friction...

This paper analyses a game theoretic model of tax competition in a system where tax authorities are revenue optimisers and countries are differentiated by size. The model accommodates more than two countries. In equilibrium, larger countries set higher tax rates non-cooperatively. By applying...

Nach über 20 Jahren Diskussionen liegen derzeit drei Modelle zur Reform der Grundsteuer vor. Sie basieren auf wert- und flächenbezogenen Bemessungsgrundlagen sowie einer Kombination aus beiden. Die Rechnungen zum regionalen Aufkommen belegen, dass die wertbasierten Modelle mit der höheren...

When a government considers a subsidy for an underdeveloped region, it has several options: the subsidies can be for land, wages, employment, or production. While land subsidy is a lump-sum transfer, the others are meant to promote local production or worker immigration. Under full employment,...

Schon 2008 monierte der Bundesfinanzhof die Vorschriften über die Einheitsbewertung, auf deren Basis die Grundsteuer berechnet wird. Mittlerweile gibt es einen Gesetzentwurf, der bemüht ist, dem Gleichheitssatz des Grundgesetzes besser zu entsprechen. Dirk Löhr stellt die Konsequenzen des...

When investigating the effects of federal grants on the behavior of lower-level governments, it is hard to defend the handling of grants as an exogenous factor affecting local governments; federal governments often set grants based on characteristics and performance of local governments. In this...

This study examines the size and diversity of tax expenditures (TEs) by gminas (municipalities) in Poland between 2007 and 2019. Consequences of gminas' taxing power and the reduction of revenues resulting from statutory tax preferences were taken into account. To analyze the data, we used:...

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...