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性影响，例如通过吸引新公司和雇员到一个地区或通过促进经济增长。在我们早期网络项目工作的基础上，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、建立一所新学院和地方公共支出。我们项目的首要目标是调查此类投资在德国劳动力市场背景下的潜在溢出效应。我们的实证分析依赖于德国社会保障记录和CADAL项目的数据，在每个地区抽取员工样本，并对他们进行长期跟踪。在我们早期工作的基础上，我们的实证策略结合了差异中的差异方法和事件研究方法。我们首先为每个治疗区匹配一个控制区，该控制区在活动前几年与治疗区在人口和行业结构方面相似。然后，我们在第二步比较治疗区和控制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年人口普查后的人口统计数据，这些数据导致了作为地方公共支出工具的市政财政均衡计划内转移支付的调整。然后，第二阶段的估算将地方公共支出与劳动力市场结果联系起来。我们的分析旨在回答以下问题：1)通过大规模创造就业机会、新建大学或地方公共支出，地方投资是否能创造额外的就业机会并提高当地劳动力市场的工资水平？如果是，在哪些领域？2)这些地方投资如何影响工人在该地区的流动？3)这些投资是否会刺激创新并吸引新企业进入该地区？我们的研究将做出三个贡献。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及其程度。特别是，我们可以对比负面冲击（即大规模裁员）和正面冲击（即开设工厂）可能产生的溢出效应；从私人投资（即工厂开业）到公共投资（即大学开业）。其次，我们区分工作和工人，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当地而且在国家层面创造就业的重要一步。最后，我们的研究结果具有重要的政策意义。我们的研究将揭示这些政策工具是否有效地刺激了当地的增长和创新，从而有可能减少地区差距。

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.