We explore the impact of central government grants on local house prices in England using a panel data set of local authorities (LAs) from 2001 to 2008. Electoral targeting of grants to LAs by the incumbent national government provides an exogenous source of variation in grants that we exploit...

This paper uses a Finnish policy intervention to study tax competition among local governments. Changes in the statutory lower limits to the property tax rates are used as a source of exogenous variation to estimate the responses of municipalities to tax rates in their neighbouring...

We test whether voters are rational in the sense that their decision to vote depends on its expected impact on the election outcomes. By using exogenous variation in pivotal probabilities that arise at population thresholds determining council sizes in Finnish municipal elections, we provide the...

This paper examines the effect of property taxation on housing construction. In 2001, Finnish municipalities were allowed to levy an extra property tax on undeveloped land zoned for housing. Municipalities that adopted the new tax instrument have a three-rate tax property tax system with...

This paper examines the effect on housing construction of taxing undeveloped residential land at a higher rate than developed land. In 2001, Finnish municipalities were allowed to levy an extra property tax on undeveloped land zoned for housing. The aim of the reform was to encourage housing...

Private rental markets in Finland were subject to rent control from 1967 until the beginning of the 1990s when the rent control system was gradually abolished. This study estimates the costs and benefits of rent control to tenants in private rental dwellings in 1990 using the years 1998 and 2001...