Suchergebnisse

We analyze the impact of fiscal decentralization on U.S. county population, employment, and real income growth. Our findings suggest that government organization matters for local economic growth, but that the impacts vary by government unit and by economic indicator. We find that single-purpose governments per square mile have a positive impact on metropolitan population and employment growth, but no significant impact on nonmetropolitan counties. In contrast, the fragmentation of general-purpose governments per capita has a negative impact on employment and population growth in nonmetropolitan counties. Our results suggest that local government decentralization matters differently for metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties.

The loss of the exchange rate as an independent policy insrument implied by European monetary union calls for an insurance scheme as a buffer against asymmetric shocks. We study the performance of such a system using historical data. A reasonable insurance scheme can be implemented on the basis of a fairly complex econometric formula. Simplifying the computation of the transfers severely worsens the performance of the system. Forcing the system to balance financially is not a critical constraint. The simulations show that stabilizing asymmetric shocks around a common trend may amplify the univariate variance of GDP for some member countries.

This paper examines the impact of smoking regulations on restaurant employment in West Virginia, a state with a high rate of smoking prevalence. Using a confidential establishment‐level dataset, our results suggest that smoking bans reduced restaurant employment by between 0.7 and 1.5 workers, depending on model specification. We find that smoking restrictions have heterogeneous impacts across establishments, with the largest impacts on mid‐sized establishments, defined as those with 10–29 employees. Our results also suggest that the impact of smoking restrictions was larger in counties with higher rates of smoking prevalence. (JELL51, D78, H0)