TY - JOUR A1 - Borck, Rainald A1 - Fossen, Frank M. A1 - Freier, Ronny A1 - Martin, Thorsten T1 - Race to the debt trap? - Spatial econometric evidence on debt in German municipalities JF - Regional science and urban economics N2 - Through an intertemporal budget constraint, jurisdictions may gain advantages in tax and spending competition by 'competing' on debt. While the existing spatial econometric literature focuses on tax and spending competition, very little is known about spatial interaction via public debt. If jurisdictions compete for mobile capital to finance public spending, they may compete in debt levels as well as taxes. We use a theoretical model to derive the reaction of jurisdictions' debt levels to their neighbors' debts. We then estimate the spatial interdependence of public debt among German municipalities using a panel on municipalities in the two largest German states from 1999 to 2006. We find significant and robust interaction effects between debt levels of neighboring municipalities, which we compare to spatial tax and spending interactions. The results indicate that a municipality increases its per capita debt by 16-33 Euro as a reaction to an increase of 100 Euro in neighboring municipalities. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. KW - Public debt KW - Tax and spending competition KW - Municipality data KW - Spatial interactions KW - Spatial panel estimation Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2015.04.003 SN - 0166-0462 SN - 1879-2308 VL - 53 SP - 20 EP - 37 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borck, Rainald A1 - Übelmesser, Silke A1 - Wimbersky, Martin T1 - The Political Economics of Higher-Education Finance for Mobile Individuals JF - FinanzArchiv N2 - We study voting over higher-education finance in an economy with two regions and two separated labor markets. Households differ in their financial endowment and their children's ability. Nonstudents are immobile. Students decide where to study; they return home after graduation with exogenous probability. The voters of the two regions decide on whether to subsidize higher-education costs or to rely on tuition fees only. We find that in equilibrium, in both regions a majority votes for subsidies when the return probability is sufficiently small. When that probability is large, both regions opt for full tuition finance. KW - voting KW - higher education KW - financing scheme KW - mobility Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1628/001522115X14206439673215 SN - 0015-2218 SN - 1614-0974 VL - 71 IS - 1 SP - 82 EP - 105 PB - Mohr Siebeck CY - Tübingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borck, Rainald T1 - Adieu Rabenmutter-culture, fertility, female labour supply, the gender wage gap and childcare JF - Journal of population economics N2 - This paper studies the effect of cultural attitudes on childcare provision, fertility, female labour supply and the gender wage gap. Cross-country data show that fertility, female labour force participation and childcare provision are positively correlated with each other, while the gender wage gap seems to be negatively correlated with these variables. The paper presents a model with endogenous fertility, female labour supply and childcare choices driven by cultural attitudes which fits these facts. There may exist multiple equilibria: one with zero childcare provision, low fertility and female labour supply and high wage gap and one with high childcare provision, high fertility and female labour supply and low wage gap. KW - Cultural attitudes KW - Fertility KW - Female labour supply KW - Wage gap KW - Childcare Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-013-0499-z SN - 0933-1433 SN - 1432-1475 VL - 27 IS - 3 SP - 739 EP - 765 PB - Springer CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borck, Rainald A1 - Wimbersky, Martin T1 - Political economics of higher education finance JF - Oxford economic papers Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/oep/gps042 SN - 0030-7653 SN - 1464-3812 VL - 66 IS - 1 SP - 115 EP - 139 PB - Oxford Univ. Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borck, Rainald T1 - Will skyscrapers save the planet? Building height limits and urban greenhouse gas emissions JF - Regional science and urban economics N2 - This paper studies the effectiveness of building height limits as a policy to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It shows that building height limits lead to urban sprawl and higher emissions from commuting. On the other hand, aggregate housing consumption may decrease, which reduces emissions from residential energy use. A numerical model is used to evaluate whether total GHG emissions may be lower under building height restrictions. Welfare is not concave in the strictness of building height limits, so either no limit or a very strict one (depending on the strength of the externality) might maximize welfare. The paper discusses several extensions, such as congestion, endogenous transport mode choice, migration, and urban heat island effect. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved KW - Greenhouse gas emissions KW - City structure KW - Building height limits Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2016.01.004 SN - 0166-0462 SN - 1879-2308 VL - 58 SP - 13 EP - 25 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bauernschuster, Stefan A1 - Borck, Rainald T1 - Formal Child Care and Family Structure: Theory and Evidence JF - CESifo economic studies : a joint initiative of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and Ifo Institute for Economic Research N2 - This article studies the effect of child care provision on family structure. We present a model of a marriage market with positive assortative matching, where in equilibrium, the poorest women stay single. Couples have to decide on the number of children and spousal specialization in home production of public goods and child care. We then study how child care provision affects the equilibrium. Due to specialization in home production, the incentive to use child care is smaller for married mothers than for single mothers. We show that this increases the number of single mothers and the divorce rate. Using survey data from Germany, we present suggestive empirical evidence consistent with this finding. (JEL codes: J12 and J13). KW - marriage KW - divorce KW - single parenthood KW - child care Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/cesifo/ifv025 SN - 1610-241X SN - 1612-7501 VL - 62 SP - 699 EP - 724 PB - Oxford Univ. Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borck, Rainald A1 - Tabuchi, Takatoshi T1 - Pollution and city size: can cities be too small? JF - Journal of Economic Geography N2 - We study optimal and equilibrium sizes of cities in a city system model with pollution. Pollution is a function of population size. If pollution is local or per-capita pollution increases with population, equilibrium cities are too large under symmetry; with asymmetric cities, the largest cities are too large and the smallest too small. When pollution is global and per-capita pollution declines with city size, cities may be too small under symmetry; with asymmetric cities, the largest cities are too small and the smallest too large if the marginal damage of pollution is large enough. We calibrate the model to US cities and find that the largest cities may be undersized by 3-4%. KW - Optimal city size distribution KW - agglomeration KW - pollution Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lby017 SN - 1468-2702 SN - 1468-2710 VL - 19 IS - 5 SP - 995 EP - 1020 PB - Oxford Univ. Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borck, Rainald A1 - Pflüger, Michael T1 - Green cities? Urbanization, trade, and the environment JF - Journal of regional science N2 - Is urbanization good for the environment? This paper establishes a simple core-periphery model with monocentric cities, which comprises key forces that shape the structure and interrelation of cities to study the impact of the urban evolution on the environment. We focus on global warming and the potential of unfettered market forces to economize on emissions. The model parameters are chosen to match the dichotomy between average "large" and "small" cities in the urban geography of the United States, and the sectoral greenhouse gas emissions recorded for the United States. Based on numerical analyzes we find that a forced switch to a system with equally sized cities reduces total emissions. Second, any city driver which pronounces the asymmetry between the core and the periphery drives up emissions in the total city system, too, and the endogenous adjustment of the urban system accounts for the bulk of the change in emissions. Third, none of the city drivers gives rise to an urban environmental Kuznets curve according to our numerical simulations. Finally, the welfare-maximizing allocation tends to involve dispersion of cities and the more so the higher is the marginal damage from pollution. KW - city structure KW - city systems KW - commuting costs KW - environmental Kuznets curve KW - environmental pollution KW - global warming KW - housing KW - trade costs Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/jors.12423 SN - 0022-4146 SN - 1467-9787 VL - 59 IS - 4 SP - 743 EP - 766 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borck, Rainald T1 - Public transport and urban pollution JF - Regional science and urban economics N2 - This paper studies the effect of public transport policies on urban pollution. It uses a quantitative equilibrium model with residential choice and mode choice. Pollution comes from commuting and residential energy use. The model parameters are calibrated to replicate key variables for American metropolitan areas. In the counterfactual, I study how free public transport coupled with increasing transit speed affects the equilibrium. In the baseline simulation, total pollution falls by 0.4%, as decreasing emissions from transport are partly offset by rising residential emissions. A second counterfactual compares a city with and without public transit. This large investment decreases pollution by 1.7%. When jobs are decentralized, emissions fall by 0.5% in the first and by 3% in the second counterfactual. KW - Public transport KW - Pollution KW - Discrete choice Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2019.06.005 SN - 0166-0462 SN - 1879-2308 VL - 77 SP - 356 EP - 366 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borck, Rainald A1 - Brueckner, Jan K. T1 - Optimal energy taxation in cities JF - Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists : JAERE N2 - This paper presents the first investigation of the effects of optimal energy taxation in an urban spatial setting, where emissions are produced both by residences and commuting. When levying an optimal direct tax on energy or carbon use is not feasible, the analysis shows that exactly the same adjustments in resource allocation can be generated by the combination of a land tax, a housing tax, and a commuting tax. We then analyze the effects of these taxes on urban spatial structure, showing that they reduce the extent of commuting and the level of housing consumption while increasing building heights, generating a more-compact city with a lower level of emissions per capita. KW - Environmental taxes KW - Greenhouse gases KW - Monocentric city Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1086/695614 SN - 2333-5955 SN - 2333-5963 VL - 5 IS - 2 SP - 481 EP - 516 PB - University of Chicago Press CY - Chicago ER -