Tools for transferring lay knowledge into local municipal public policy in Slovak local municipalities

Local public goods and the demand for high-income municipalities

Affluent towns often deliver high-quality public services to their residents. I estimate the willingness to pay to live in a high-income suburb, above and beyond the demand of wealthy neighbors, by measuring changes in housing prices across city–suburban borders as the income disparity between the two municipalities changes over time. I find that a $10,000 increase in town-level median income i...

Global Knowledge, Local Solutions: Interest Rate and Monetary Policy

Health Promotion at Local Level in Norway: The Use of Public Health Coordinators and Health Overviews to Promote Fair Distribution Among Social Groups

Background Norway is internationally known today for its political and socio-economic prioritization of equity. The 2012 Public Health Act (PHA) aimed to further equity in the domain of health by addressing the social gradient in health. The PHA’s main policy measures were (1) delegation to the municipal level of responsibility for identifying and targeting underserved groups and (2) the imposi...

Local Public Good Provision, Municipal Consolidation, and National Transfers

We analyze a simple model of local public good provision in a country consisting of a large number of heterogeneous regions, each comprising two districts, a city and a village. When districts remain autonomous and local public goods have positive spillover effects on the neighboring district, there is underprovision of public goods in both the city and the village. When districts consolidate, ...

Knowledge, local actors and public action

What is the status and role in public action of the knowledge possessed by ‘simple’ citizens, users and professionals? That is the question broached in both this article and the entire special issue for which it serves as the introduction. To this end, we explore the abundant scientific literature pertaining to the topic and try to situate our own position within the broader setting. After disc...