Local Labor Market Effects of Plant Openings, New Colleges and Local Public Spending

许多私人和公共投资具有区域后果，例如通过吸引新公司和雇员到一个区域或通过促进经济增长。在我们早期网络计划工作的基础上，我们的项目研究了三种基于地点的投资：开设一家大型旗舰工厂，建立一所新学院，以及地方公共支出。我们项目的首要目标是在德国劳动力市场的背景下调查此类投资的潜在溢出效应。我们的实证分析依赖于来自德国社会保障记录和CADAL项目的数据，以抽取每个地区的员工样本，并对他们进行一段时间的跟踪。在我们早期工作的基础上，我们的经验策略结合了差异法和事件研究法。我们首先为每个治疗区匹配一个控制区，在活动之前的几年里，控制区在人口和产业结构方面与治疗区相似。然后，我们在第二步中比较治疗和对照地区在事件发生后几年的结果。为了分析地方公共支出的地方溢出效应，我们使用了1986年人口普查后的最新人口统计数据，这导致了市政财政均衡计划内的转移支付调整，作为地方公共支出的工具。然后，第二阶段的估计将地方公共支出与劳动力市场结果联系起来。我们的分析试图回答以下问题：1)地方投资，通过创造大量就业机会、新建一所大学或地方公共支出，是否在当地劳动力市场创造了额外的就业机会并提高了工资；如果是，在哪些部门？2)这些地方投资如何影响工人进出该地区的流动性？3)这些投资是否刺激创新，并将新企业吸引到该地区？我们的研究将做出三点贡献。首先，政府经常花费大量资金来吸引大型旗舰公司或建立新的大学，这通常是出于集聚和地方乘数效应的想法。我们的研究将揭示这种溢出效应的存在和规模。特别是，我们可以比较负面冲击(即大规模裁员)与积极冲击(即工厂开业)可能产生的溢出效应，以及私人投资(即工厂开业)与公共投资(即大学开业)可能产生的溢出效应。其次，我们区分就业和工人，并分析当地经济如何适应冲击，这是理解工厂开业是否不仅在地方层面创造就业机会，也是在国家层面创造就业机会的重要一步。最后，我们的研究结果具有重要的政策含义。我们的研究将阐明这些政策工具在刺激当地增长和创新方面是否有效，从而潜在地缩小地区差距的问题。

Many private and public investments have regional consequences, e.g. by attracting new firms and employees to a region or by fostering economic growth. Building on our earlier work in the network program, our project studies three such place-based investments: the opening of a large flagship plant, the establishment of a new college, and local public spending. The overarching goal of our project is to investigate the potential spillover effects of such investments in the context of the German labor market. Our empirical analysis relies on data from the German social security records and the CADAL project to draw a sample of employees in each region and follow them over time. Building on our earlier work, our empirical strategy combines a difference-in-difference approach with an event-study approach. We first match for each treatment district a control district that in years prior to the event was similar to the treatment district in terms of the demographic and industry structure. We then compare in the second step outcomes in treatment and control districts in the years after the event took place. To analyze the local spillover effects of local public spending, we use updates in population counts after the 1986 Census which result in adjustments of transfers within the municipal fiscal equalization scheme as instrument for local public spending. The second-stage estimation then relates local public spending to labor market outcomes. Our analysis seeks to answer the following questions: 1) Do local investments, through massive job creation, a new college or local public spending, create additional jobs and raise wages in the local labor market; and if so, in which sectors? 2) How do these local investments influence the mobility of workers in and out of the region? 3) Do these investments spur innovation and attract new businesses to the region? Our research will make three contributions. First, governments often spend considerable sums of money to attract large flagship firms or establish new colleges, often motivated by the idea of agglomeration and local multiplier effects. Our research will shed light on the existence and magnitude of such spillover effects. In particular, we can contrast possible spillover effects from negative shocks (i.e., mass layoffs) with those from positive shocks (i.e., plant openings); and from private investments (i.e., plant openings) with those from public investments (i.e. college openings). Second, we distinguish between jobs and workers and analyze how local economies adjust to shocks which are an important step in understanding whether plant openings, for example, create jobs not only at the local but also at the national level. Finally, the results of our research have important policy implications. Our research will shed some light on the question whether these policy instruments are effective in spurring local growth and innovation, and thus potentially reduce regional disparities.