R11 Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, and Changes
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High growth firms (HGFs) are important for job creation and considered to be precursors of economic growth. We investigate how formal institutions, like product- and labor-market regulations, as well as the quality of regional governments that implement these regulations, affect HGF development across European regions. Using data from Eurostat, OECD, WEF, and Gothenburg University, we show that both regulatory stringency and the quality of the regional government influence the regional shares of HGFs. More importantly, we find that the effect of labor- and product-market regulations ultimately depends on the quality of regional governments: in regions with high quality of government, the share of HGFs is neither affected by the level of product market regulation, nor by more or less flexibility in hiring and firing practices. Our findings contribute to the debate on the effects of regulations by showing that regulations are not, per se, “good, bad, and ugly”, rather their impact depends on the efficiency of regional governments. Our paper offers important building blocks to develop tailored policy measures that may influence the development of HGFs in a region.
This paper analyzes the effect of new bicycle lanes on traffic volume, congestion, and accidents. Crucially, the new bike lanes replace existing car lanes thereby reducing available space for motorized traffic. In order to obtain causal estimates, I exploit the quasi-random timing and location of the newly built cycle lanes. Using an event study design, a two-way fixed effects model and the synthetic control group method on geo-coded data, I show that the construction of pop-up bike lanes significantly reduced average car speed by 8 to 12 percentage points (p.p.) and up to 16 p.p. in peak traffic hours. In contrast, the results for car volume are modest, while the data does not allow for a conclusive judgment of accidents.
Im Zentrum Europas
(2008)
European integration provokes competition between the European metropolitan areas. At the same time, the question at which locations services of highest centrality are produced remains open. The paper analyses how far the German capital Berlin accepts the challenge to accomodate headquarters of multinational firms. Our investigation shows that Berlin's qualifications to attract headquarters are quite well. The number of headquarters residing in Berlin has increased subtly but contiuous during the last 15 years. One advantage could be the spatial proximity to the Eastern European markets.