“Wissenschaft im Rathaus” Talk by Björn Bremer

Cologne’s City Hall was the venue for a talk by MPIfG senior researcher Björn Bremer on public finance and local investment in June of this year. As part of the “Wissenschaft im Rathaus” (WiR) series, Bremer reported on a study he conducted with MPIfG colleagues Leon Wansleben and Donato Di Carlo on the investment backlog in Germany. Their study explores why some local governments invest so little in public infrastructure and why some manage to clear the investment backlog while others do not. Drawing on a novel dataset with contributions from all thirteen of Germany’s statistical offices, the authors trace developments over the past twenty-five years.

The WiR series is an initiative of the Cologne Science Forum and has been running for over ten years. The talks are held on the first Monday of the month and are an opportunity for the citizens of Cologne to engage with the science and research taking place in and around the city.

Further reading

Björn Bremer, Donato Di Carlo, and Leon Wansleben. 2022. The Constrained Politics of Local Public Investments under Cooperative Federalism. Socio-Economic Review. Preprint version/online appendix

Öffentliche Finanzen: Was hemmt lokale Investitionen? Nachbericht: Wissenschaft im Rathaus