IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ces/ifosdt/v56y2003i08p3-13.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do we need measures to boost municipal economies?

Author

Listed:
  • Helmut Seitz
  • Gunnar Schwarting
  • Horst Zimmermann
  • Birgit Frischmuth

Abstract

In his government statement of 14 March 2003, Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder announced, among other things, his interest in low-interest loans for specific local investment projects. In the opinion of Prof. Helmut Seitz, Frankfurt/Oder University, this proposal "is merely a low-interest programme for municipal infrastructure projects. To hold expectations that with this programme, with its subsidy of 2 euro per inhabitant, will bring a perceptible stimulus to local investment activity not to mention the economy as a whole is certainly inflated". The danger that the programme will only lead to a restructuring of existing loans and to free-rider effects is put forward by Prof. Gunnar Schwarting, Rheinland-Pfalz Städtetag. Also Dr. Birgit Frischmuth, Deutsche Städtetag, expresses scepticism: "With a loan programme of the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, the goal of effective immediate help for the municipalities will not be achieved... There is no alternative to municipal finance reform". For Prof. Horst Zimmermann, University of Marburg, "a short-term strengthening of the revenue of cities makes sense...The conclusion is that a municipal economic stimulus programme is a very wise strategy at the present time".

Suggested Citation

  • Helmut Seitz & Gunnar Schwarting & Horst Zimmermann & Birgit Frischmuth, 2003. "Do we need measures to boost municipal economies?," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 56(08), pages 3-13, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ifosdt:v:56:y:2003:i:08:p:3-13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/ifosd_2003_8_1.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • H10 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ifosdt:v:56:y:2003:i:08:p:3-13. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifooode.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.