Does Partisan Alignment Affect the Electoral Reward of Intergovernmental Transfers?

In this paper we test the hypothesis that intergovernmental grants allocated to co-partisans buy more political support than grants allocated to local governments controlled by opposition parties. We use a rich Spanish database containing information about the grants received by 617 municipalities during the period 1993-2003 from two different upper-tier governments (Regional and Upper-local), as well as data of municipal voting behaviour at three electoral contests held at the different layers of government during this period. Therefore, we are able to estimate two different vote equations, analysing the effects of grants given to aligned and unaligned municipalities on the vote share of the incumbent party/parties at the regional and local elections. We account for the endogeneity of grants by instrumenting them with the average amount of grants distributed by upper-layer governments. The results suggest that grants given to co-partisans buy some political support, but that grants given to opposition parties do not bring any votes, suggesting that the grantee reaps as much political credit from intergovernmental grants as the grantor.voting, parties, grants

Does urban sprawl increase the costs of providing local public services? Evidence from Spanish municipalities

This paper examines the impact of urban sprawl, a phenomenon of particular interest in Spain, which is currently experiencing this process of rapid, low-density urban expansion. Many adverse consequences are attributed to urban sprawl (e.g., traffic congestion, air pollution and social segregation), though here we are concerned primarily with the rising costs of providing local public services. Our initial aim is to develop an accurate measure of urban sprawl so that we might empirically test its impact on municipal budgets. Then, we undertake an empirical analysis using a cross-sectional data set of 2,500 Spanish municipalities for the year 2003 and a piecewise linear function to account for the potentially nonlinear relationship between sprawl and local costs. The estimations derived from the expenditure equations for both aggregate and six disaggregated spending categories indicate that low-density development patterns lead to greater provision costs of local public services.Urban sprawl, local public spending.

The Effects of Partisan Alignment on the Allocation of Intergovernmental Transfers. Differences-in-Differences Estimates for Spain

In this paper we test the hypothesis that municipalities aligned with upper-tier grantor governments (i.e., controlled by the same party) will receive more grants than those that are unaligned. We use a rich Spanish database, which provides information on grants received by nearly 900 municipalities during the period 1993-2003 from three different upper-tier governments (i.e., Central, Regional and Upper-local). Since three elections were held at each tier during this period, we have enough within-municipality variation in partisan alignment to provide differences-in-differences estimates of the effects of alignment on the amount of grants coming from each source. Moreover, the fact that a municipality may simultaneously receive grants from aligned and unaligned grantors allows us to use a triple-differences estimator, which consists of estimating the effects of changing alignment status on the change in grants coming from the aligned grantors relative to the change in grants coming from the unaligned ones. The results suggest that partisan alignment has a sizeable positive effect on the amount of grants received by municipalities.grant allocation, alignment, electoral competition

Biomechanics in batoid fishes

Batoid fishes (e.g., manta rays) are extremely efficient swimmers, combining extreme strength and incredible maneuverability. Replicating these unique properties in synthetic autonomous under-water vehicles would have tremendous implications. Several research groups have been exploring these concepts for the past decade, and a small number of prototypes have been demonstrated. Importantly though, these prototypes match the batoid external motion (in terms of range of motion and actuation force) but do not employ a similar internal mechanics. The configuration of skeletons and muscle structures for a number of different batoid fishes have been recently unveiled, presenting a unique opportunity to analyze the internal mechanics of these complex structures, and ultimately use the acquired understanding to realize truly bio-mimetic underwater vehicles. As a whole wing has hundreds of moving elements, a full finite elements simulation of the entire wing is not feasible. To address this problem, we implemented a numerical model which will represent a part of the entire wing, and we investigated the effects of geometric and materials parameters on its stiffness. The length of each radial and the offset between them are going to be the most relevant variables and hence, the ones tested. Furthermore, to represent efficiently all the wing, we calculated its effective elastic properties using rigorous homogenization theory. These properties could then be used in shell FE models of the entire wing, and capture spatial variation in elastic constants in a numerically efficient way. Within the context of this work, the stiff and compliant direction will be found and that will give us an idea of the ability of the model to capture the experimentally observed deformation patterns. We observe that our 2D homogenized wing model fails to capture the substantial twisting/bending coupling that is observed experimentally. We speculate that the lack of torsional degree of freedom at the joints is responsible for this discrepancy. Once this deformation mechanism is built into a model, future investigations can use the homogenized stiffness approach to extract an effective continuum-based representation of the response of the wing in a continuum shell finite element model. This element can then be used for efficient modeling of entire wings; this will allow efficient modeling of spatially non-uniform wing morphologies in a Finite Elements setting. Once the elastic response of the wing is completely characterized, efforts will need to focus on actuation.Outgoin

Tax differentials and agglomeration economies in intraregional firm location

This paper analyses empirically how differences in local taxes affect the intraregional location of new manufacturing plants. These effects are examined within the random profit maximization framework while accounting for the presence of different types of agglomeration economies (localization/ urbanization/ Jacobs’ economies) at the municipal level. We look at the location decision of more than 10,000 establishments locating between 1996 and 2003 across more than 400 municipalities in Catalonia, a Spanish region. It is necessary to restrict the choice set to the local labor market and, above all, to control for agglomeration economies so as to identify the effects of taxes on the location of new establishments.Local taxes, Agglomeration economies, Firm location.

Which Communities should be afraid of Mobility? The Effects of Agglomeration Economies on the Sensitivity of Firm Location to Local Taxes

This paper examines the effects of agglomeration economies (AE) on the sensitivity of firm location to tax differentials. An initial reading of the story suggests that, with AE, when a firm moves into a community attracted by a tax reduction, other firms may decide to move in as well. This suggests that AE increase the sensitivity of firm location to local taxes. However, a second version of the story reads that, if economic activities are highly concentrated in space, AE might offset any tax differential, hence suggesting a reduction in this sensitivity. This paper provides a theoretical model of intraregional firm location with Marshallian AE that is able to generate both hypotheses: AE increase (decrease) the effect of taxes when locations are (are not) of a similar size. We then use Spanish municipal data for the period 1995-2002 to test these hypotheses, analyzing the combined effect of local business taxes and Marshallian AE on the intraregional location of employment. In line with the theory, a municipality with stronger AE experiences lower (higher) tax effects if it is sufficiently dissimilar (similar) to its neighbors in terms of size.local taxes, agglomeration economies, local employment growth, instrumental variables

The effects of partisan alignment on the allocation of intergovernmental transfers. Differences-in-differences estimates for Spain

In this paper we test the hypothesis that municipalities aligned with upper-tier grantor governments (i.e., controlled by the same party) will receive more grants than those that are unaligned. We use a rich Spanish database, which provides information on grants received by nearly 900 municipalities during the period 1993-2003 from three different upper-tier governments (i.e., Central, Regional and Upper-local). Since three elections were held at each tier during this period, we have enough within-municipality variation in partisan alignment to provide differences-in-differences estimates of the effects of alignment on the amount of grants coming from each source. Moreover, the fact that a municipality may simultaneously receive grants from aligned and unaligned grantors allows us to use a triple-differences estimator, which consists of estimating the effects of changing alignment status on the change in grants coming from the aligned grantors relative to the change in grants coming from the unaligned ones. The results suggest that partisan alignment has a sizeable positive effect on the amount of grants received by municipalities. Length: 33 pagesgrant allocation, alignment, electoral competition

Vertical income tax externalities and fiscal interdependence: evidence from the US

Concurrent taxation is a feature of many federal systems. As a consequence of this fact, the tax policy of one level of government affects the tax base of the other. This paper carries out a theoretical analysis of the interdependent tax-setting decisions of federal and regional governments, paying special attention to institutional features that characterise the U.S. federal system in practice and that formally link the taxes employed at various levels of government (i.e.: tax deductibility). The developed hypotheses are tested with data corresponding to the U.S. personal income taxes for the last decade. We find that when the federal government increases taxes, there is a significant positive response of regional taxes. --

Determinantes del gasto público local: ¿necesidades de gasto o capacidad fiscal?

En este trabajo se cuantifica la importancia relativa de las necesidades de gasto y de la capacidad fiscal como factores explicativos de la desigualdad observada en los niveles de gasto público local por habitante con datos de los municipios de la provincia de Barcelona con más de 5.000 habitantes para 1996. La metodología utilizada consiste en la estimación de ecuaciones de demanda para siete categorías de gasto. Las necesidades de gasto son introducidas en el modelo a partir de una especificación detallada de la relación entre actividad y resultados de los servicios, en la que se incluyen distintos grupos de usuarios y variables de coste. Además de los determinantes clásicos del gasto –precio, renta y subvenciones–, se introducen también como variables de control un índice de capacidad fiscal, factores políticos e institucionales, y los efectos de la actividad realizada por gobiernos cercanos. Los resultados indican que las necesidades de gasto explican un porcentaje sustancial de la variación en el gasto por habitante (44%), superior al porcentaje explicado por la capacidad fiscal (38%), por factores políticos e institucionales (9%), o por las interdependencias existentes entre gobiernos cercanos (9%). Los resultados obtenidos ponen en relieve también la importancia de diversas variables de necesidades, además de la población, como por ejemplo: dispersión de la población, niveles de pobreza, visitantes diarios, población estacional, ocupación comercial, etc

Inter-regional redistribution through infrastructure investment: tactical or programmatic?

In this paper we analyze the effects of both tactical and programmatic politics on the inter-regional allocation of infrastructure investment. We use a panel of data for the Spanish electoral districts during the period 1964-2004 to estimate an equation where investment depends both on economic and political variables. The results show that tactical politics do matter since, after controlling for economic traits, the districts with more ‘Political power’ still receive more investment. These districts are those where the incumbents’ Vote margin of victory/ defeat in the past election is low, where the Marginal seat price is low, where there is Partisan alignment between the executives at the central and regional layers of government, and where there are Pivotal regional parties which are influential in the formation of the central executive. However, the results also show that programmatic politics matter, since inter-regional redistribution (measured as the elasticity of investment to per capita income) is shown to increase with the arrival of the Democracy and EU Funds, with Left governments, and to decrease the higher is the correlation between a measure of ‘Political power’ and per capita income.Infrastructures, Political Economy, Redistribution