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

存在区域和政策溢出效应的地方政策效应

• 批准号: 361846460
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Sebastian Siegloch
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Center for Macroeconomic Research (CMR)
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Fellowships
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2016-12-31 至 2017-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/361846460?language=en
• 关键词: Local; Policy; Effects; Presence; Regional

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.

许多重要的经济决策都有区域因素。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居住和工作地点时起着至关重要的作用。其中许多因素又受到地方政策的影响，而地方政策在大多数具有联邦结构的国家中十分突出。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，许多联邦国家利用由中央政府资助的针对具体地区的补贴，这也影响到具体地点的相对吸引力。以前的研究主要集中在这些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，在一个特定区域实施或针对一个特定区域的地方政策很可能也会间接影响到其他据称不涉及的区域。在此背景下，本项目的研究目标是实证检验地方政策对其他地区的区域和政治溢出效应。为了做到这一点，德国的机构设置被利用，其中超过11，000个小城市可以独立做出重要的财政决策，如设定税率或增加支出。区域溢出效应的一个普遍前提是经济主体是移动的。因此，该项目的第一部分将调查个人的流动性。本项目将利用导致工资下降压力的市政营业税税率的变化，分析这种工资压力如何影响工人在工作场所、居住地或两者方面的地点决定。在第二部分中，研究了基于地点的政策的影响，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区域应该调整其当地政策，作为对未获得补贴的回应。这一机制是用德国的两个安置基地政策进行测试的：（一）1980年代靠近德国内部边界的西德城市的Zonenrandebietsförderung;（二）统一后针对东德国地区的Gemeinschaftsaufgabe Verbesserung der regionalen Wirtschaftsstruktur（GRW）。最后，该项目侧重于特定的溢出效应引起的税收竞争。该项目旨在通过允许政府制定两种税收工具来推进税收竞争文献-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测试，这些市政当局可以设定商业和财产税率。