Working Paper #02.19 now available

By Sven Wardenburg and Thomas Brenner.

The Working Paper #02.19 “The impact of place-based policies on perceived regional living conditions across German labor market regions. Examining the impacts on migration flows.” is now online and available here  for reading and downloading. An overview of all Working Papers yet published in this blog is provided via the button “Working Papers” in the menu above.

Abstract

The paper analyzes the impact of the two major German regional development and redistribution policies, the municipal fiscal equalization scheme and the economic funds GRW, on perceived regional living conditions, measured through interregional migration between German labor market regions. Using a spatial vector-autoregressive panel model (SpVar), we find evidence that equalization transfers have a significant positive impact on perceived living conditions and contribute to the aim of regional equity. These effects are especially found for regions with low endogenous fiscal capacities. GRW funding reveals no significant effects on net migration rates in total, but short-term effects in rural regions.