Comparing Institutional Textures between Germany and Italy with LAU level data

In view of comparing the institutional textures of Germany and Italy (Boltho et al., 2017), I go beyond existing comparable datasets at NUTS2 and NUTS3 level and construct two datasets at the LAU level, which for Germany captures the "Gemeinde" and for Italy the "Municipio". In this paper I briefly present the variables that were identified as comparable across the two countries. The resulting LAUDEIT dataset has been prepared for future empirical investigations of the particularities of institutional architecture (Gertler, 2010) that may contribute to different socio-economic performance within common European governance (Boitani and Tamborini, 2021; Johnston and Reagan, 2017). Descriptive statistics of the dataset hint there may be structural differences between the two countries in terms of commuting and internal migration patterns, size of the firm and - in a related fashion - entrepreneurship rate. Municipal data also confirm that Germany presents higher income per capita, and that Italy is affected by dualism in both, employment rates and income per capita. In terms of institutional differences I find that despite similar tax rates, German municipalities withhold a much greater share of income taxes collected than their Italian counterparts. The latter rely heavily on property taxes, which despite being collected mainly on second homes represent a crucial influx of revenues for Italian municipalities.