Local Policy Effects in the Presence of Regional and Policy Spill-Overs

许多重要的经济决策都有地区性因素。当地工资、通勤距离、当地交通和城市生活质量等因素在个人选择住所和工作场所的位置时起着至关重要的作用。这些因素中的许多反过来又受到当地政策的影响，这些政策在大多数实行联邦制的国家都很突出。在这些国家，地方政府制定自己的税率或决定当地的基础设施投资，以使他们的城市更具吸引力。此外，许多联邦制国家利用中央政府资助的特定地区补贴，这也影响了特定地点的相对吸引力。以前的研究主要侧重于此类地方政策对受影响地区的直接影响。然而，众所周知，地方之间相互竞争，并对邻近司法管辖区的政策选择做出战略性反应。因此，在某一特定区域实施或针对某一区域实施的地方政策很可能也会间接影响其他据称未涉及的区域。在此背景下，本项目的研究目标是对地方政策对其他地区的这种区域和政治溢出进行实证检验。为了做到这一点，利用了德国的体制环境，11 000多个小城市可以独立作出重要的财政决策，如设定税率或增加支出。地区性溢出的一个普遍前提是，经济主体是流动的。因此，该项目的第一部分将调查个人的流动性。利用市政营业税税率的变化导致工资下降的压力，该项目将分析这种工资压力如何影响工人在工作场所、住所或两者兼而有之的区位决定。在第二部分，以地方为基础的政策的效果是研究，这应该会引发不同类型的区域溢出效应，因为竞争但最初未受影响的地区应该调整其地方政策，以应对没有获得补贴的情况。这一机制通过两项德国安置基地政策进行了检验：(I)1980年代西德靠近内德边界的市镇的地区一体化政策；(Ii)统一后针对东德地区的地区一体化政策。最后，该项目重点研究了税收竞争引起的具体溢出效应。该项目旨在通过允许政府设定两种税收工具来推动税收竞争文献--这一假设适用于大多数地方政府。然后使用德国市政当局的数据对理论预测进行验证，这些市政当局可以设定商业税率和财产税税率。

Many important economic decisions have a regional component. Factors like local wages, the commuting distance, local transportation and a city's quality of life play a crucial role when individuals choose the location of their residence and their workplace. Many of these factors are in turn influenced by local policies, which are prominent in most countries that have a federal structure. In those countries, local governments set their own tax rates or decide on local infrastructure investments to make their city more attractive. In addition, many federal countries make use of region-specific subsidies financed by the central government, which also affect the relative attractiveness of a specific location. Previous studies have primarily focused on the direct effects of such local policies on the affected regions. However, it is well known that localities compete against each other and react strategically to policy choices of neighboring jurisdictions. As a result, it is likely that local policies implemented in or targeted at one specific region will indirectly affect other, allegedly uninvolved regions as well. Against this backdrop, the research objective of this project is to empirically test for such regional and political spill-overs of local policies on other regions. In order to do so, the German institutional setting is exploited, where more than 11,000 small municipalities which can independently make important fiscal decisions such as setting tax rates or increasing spending. A general precondition for regional spill-overs is that economic agents are mobile. The first part of the project will, therefore, investigate the mobility of individuals. Exploiting variation in municipal business tax rates that induces downward pressure on wage, the project will analyze how this wage pressure affects the locational decision of workers in terms of workplace, residence or both. In a second part, the effect of place-based policies are studies, which should trigger a different type of regional spill-overs as competing but initially unaffected regions should adjust their local policies as a response to not receiving the subsidy. This mechanism is tested using two German placed-base policies: (i) the Zonenrandgebietsförderung of West German municipalities close to the inner-German border in the 1980s; and (ii) the Gemeinschaftsaufgabe Verbesserung der regionalen Wirtschaftsstruktur (GRW) targeted at East Germany regions after reunification. Last, the project focuses on specific spill-overs effects induced by tax competition. The project intends to advance the tax competition literature by allowing governments to set two tax instruments - an assumption that holds for most local governments. The theoretical predictions are then tested using data on German municipalities, which can set both business and property tax rates.