This paper provides a spatial-econometric analysis of the setting of property tax rates by Dutch municipalities. We find evidence of tax mimicking: a ten percent higher property tax rate in neighboring municipalities leads to a 3.5 percent higher tax rate. Mimicking is less pronounced in municipalities governed by coalitions backed by a large majority. This points to yardstick competition as the most likely source of tax mimicking. We also find that Dutch voters seem to be able to penalize incumbents for anticipated tax rate differentials, but not for unanticipated tax rate differentials. This limits the effectiveness of yardstick competition as a mechanism to reduce political rent-seeking. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005property tax, tax mimicking, yardstick competition, spatial econometrics,

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We study how municipal amalgamation affects local government spending, taxation, and service provision in the Netherlands. Employing different models, different control groups, and a number of robustness tests, we find no significant effect on aggregate spending or taxation, although spending on administration is reduced. We explore whether this finding might hide amalgamation effects working in opposite directions for different types of municipalities (e.g., small versus large, or homogeneous versus heterogeneous), cancelling each other out. This does not seem to be the case. We also investigate whether amalgamation leads to better public services instead of lower spending, but find no evidence.

Using a unique 10-year dataset of all 458 Dutch municipalities, we apply a differences-in-differences approach to estimate the effect of unit-based pricing on household waste quantities and recycling. Community-level studies of unit-based pricing typically do not include fixed effects at the local level. We find that failure to do so may substantially inflate the estimated price effect. We also find that unit-based pricing may be endogenous, and use instrumental variables to account for this. Our analysis shows that user fees depend on user fees in neighboring jurisdictions (policy interaction). Our estimate of the garbage reduction per $1 user fee is lower than any previous estimate bar one. The price effect depends on the pricing system: weight-based systems reduce garbage quantities more than volume-based systems. User fees increase recycling, especially of paper, but not nearly as much as they reduce garbage quantities. We find no evidence for waste tourism or illegal dumping.

Local governments can increase size in particular policy fields through cooperation with other local governments. This is often thought to improve efficiency, but there is little empirical evidence supporting this hypothesis. We study the case of the Netherlands, which has been a veritable laboratory of intermunicipal cooperation (IMC), using panel data for 2005-2013. We find no evidence that IMC reduces total spending of the average municipality. Indeed, IMC seems to increase spending in small and large municipalities, leaving spending in mid-sized municipalities unaffected. In one specific field, tax collection, spending may be reduced through IMC. Spending in this field is low, which may explain why total spending is unaffected. Instead of lowering spending, municipalities may have used possible cost savings as a result of IMC to improve public service levels. We do not find evidence substantiating this hypothesis, however.