Matthieu Leprince

The Effects of Politics on Local Tax Setting: Evidence from France

This paper investigates the hypothesis that local politics has an impact on local taxation in the French public sector by using a cross-sectional dataset on departments in 1999. Political variables are included in a tax-setting equation to provide empirical evidence whether local governments in France adopt business taxation behaviour closer to the Leviathan government hypothesis, with higher tax rates when political competition decreases, or to the partisan government hypothesis, with differences in tax rates according to partisan variables. It is shown that the wider the seats margin, the lower the tax rates, and that this cut is weaker in the case of a left-wing local majority than a right-wing majority. It is therefore concluded that the partisan government hypothesis is more supported by the French data than the Leviathan one, even after controlling for tax interdependencies between departments.

The Impact of Inter-Municipal Cooperation on Local Public Spending?

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effects of inter-municipal fiscal cooperation on municipal public spending, based on the French experience. We estimate a model of municipal spending choice using panel data and spatial econometrics for municipalities over the period 1994-2003. We provide two main results. First, inter-municipal cooperation has no significant impact on the level of municipal public spending, which suggests that cooperation does not achieve its goal of reducing municipal spending by the sharing of local responsibilities. Second, there are no spending interactions between municipalities belonging to the same inter-municipal community. This is in line with the goal assigned to cooperation in terms of internalization of spatial externalities. However, our results show that benefit spillovers remain highly significant outside inter-municipal communities, suggesting that inter-municipal communities remain too small.

Do Closeness and Stake Increase Voter Turnout? Evidence from Election Results in Small French Towns in Brittany

ABSTRACT Do closeness and stake increase voter turnout? Evidence from election results in small French towns in Brittany. Regional Studies. This article explores the determinants of second-round voter turnout in small French towns with a focus on two hypotheses. First, an increase in the closeness of the race may lead to an increase in turnout. Second, a higher seats stake, that is, a higher proportion of the total number of seats that remain to be filled in the second round of the election, may increase turnout. Results show that increases in both closeness and seats stake lead to higher voter turnout. Thus, evidence is given in favour of the assumption of rationality in voting in local elections.