This dissertation consists of three essays examining issues related to fiscal competition. The first essay investigates the Stackelberg equilibrium for public input competition and compares it with the non-cooperative Nash equilibrium. Given two asymmetric regions, I show that under the Nash equilibrium, the more productive region tends to spend more on public input, which results in this region attracting more capital than the less productive region. The comparison of the two equilibria reveals that the leader region obtains a first mover advantage under the Stackelberg setting. This suggests that if regions interact with each other sequentially as in the Stackelberg equilibrium, then the regional disparity that is due to the heterogeneity of productivity is likely to be mitigated or enlarged, depending on which region performs the leadership role in the competition process. This second essay examines how a fiscal equalization system affects the disciplining effect of competition for capital among heterogeneous regions in a decentralized economy. I build a model in which regions that are heterogeneous in initial endowments try to attract capital by competing public input that enhances the productivity of capital; meanwhile, a fiscal equalization system is imposed by the central government to reduce regional disparities in fiscal capacity. The key prediction, borne out in data from the German equalization system, is that while competition for capital strengthens discipline in the well-endowed regions, it weakens discipline in the poorly endowed regions. However, a conventional equalization transfer scheme, common to many countries, can be effective in correcting the distortion driven by the heterogeneity of initial endowments across competing regions. This third essay aims to provide empirical evidence on the extent and possible channels of tax competition among provincial governments in China. Using a panel of provincial level data for 1993-2007, I find strong evidence of strategic tax interaction among provincial governments. Tax policy is approximated by average effective tax rates on foreign investment, taking into account the tax incentives available to foreign investors. In line with the predictions of the theoretical tax competition literature, I also highlight the impact of each province's characteristics (including its size and level of industrialization) on the strategic interaction with its neighbors. Finally, I explicitly identify the establishment of development zones as an important conduit for tax competition among provinces.

Thesis advisor: Pablo Guerron / The dissertation examines how fiscal policies adjust to economic states in a growth model where productions are mobile across jurisdictions and the corresponding consequences. In my work, I study the properties of optimal state-level corporate and labor income tax rates and how shocks in the federal tax rates affect the economy; and I endogenize the federal-level fiscal policies in a Stackelberg game setting where the federal government is the leader and the states are the followers. In “Fiscal Competition and Federal Shocks”, I answer such the question of “how a shock to federal tax rate affect the macro-economy”. The innovation is that I take into account the effects of factor mobility, state-federal interaction, and state-state interaction on the transmission mechanism of the federal shocks. By using the U.S. data set, I find the evidence that state-level tax rates will respond to changes in federal tax rates (known as vertical competition) and the neighboring state's policies (known as horizontal competition). To rationalize this finding, I develop a two-region growth model with benevolent state governments, integrated capital market, and sticky migration. My quantitative result indicates that omitting the endogenous responses of state-level policies leads to significant difference in response to a federal shock. This means that the central policy make has to consider the intergovernmental fiscal relations when designing federal fiscal policies. In “Optimal Policies in a Federation”, I examine the optimal federal and state fiscal policies in a dynamic macro model with policy commitment, integrated capital market, and inter-state migration. In modeled governance system, the federal government is the Stackelberg leader, the state governments are the followers and take the leader's policies as given. In the interior-point steady-state, the overall tax rate on corporate income is zero. However, the leader and followers impose different tax rates. The leader levies a positive and high tax rate, the followers levy negative tax rates. The zero (overall) tax rate result holds when the states are heterogeneous in their TFPs. If the federal government has to impose the same labor income tax rate on the states, the federal tax rates are independent of the degree of inequality and each state has a zero overall corporate tax rate. IF the federal labor tax system is nonlinear, the states impose different tax rates. But the tax-base-weighted overall tax rate in the economy is still zero. In addition, I find that increasing the federal corporate tax rate is the optimal response to foreign country's TFP becomes higher. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

<p>While competition among companies tends to be beneficial for the general public, this is not necessarily the case for competition among governments. Key in the fiscal competition theory is that the mobility of firms and households yields incentives for governments to aim to improve their relative position through successive undercutting of tax rates and welfare state arrangements. This mechanism has the potential to work as a disciplining device because it ensures that no jurisdiction is allowed to be grossly inefficient, because if it were grossly inefficient, mobile factors of production would move away. The main concern in the theoretical fiscal competition literature, however, has been that fiscal competition lowers government spending below their efficient levels. Another concern related to fiscal competition is that household mobility is likely to undermine attempts by governments to redistribute income. Empirical evaluation of both the existence and consequences of fiscal competition is the central topic of the thesis “An Empirical Analysis of Decentralization, Fiscal Competition and Welfare Policy”. </p><p>A particular focus of this thesis is on fiscal competition in welfare policy. With decentralized responsibility for the welfare benefit system in Norway, theory predicts that local governments will behave strategically in setting their welfare policy in order to avoid becoming ‘welfare magnets’. The key finding in Chapter 2 of this thesis is that Norwegian local governments in fact engage in such a ‘welfare game’. A local government will respond with reducing their welfare benefits when neighboring local governments reduce their welfare benefits. Encouraged by the finding in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 seeks to answer the question: Does Welfare Policy Affect Residential Choices? The analysis shows that Norwegian welfare recipients respond to changes in welfare policy by migrating. Local politicians concern about being to generous compared to their peers seem warranted. The analysis in Chapter 4 evaluates whether strategic interaction among Norwegian local governments in property tax decisions occurs. With limited mobility of the tax base and politically highly visible decisions, we interpret the strategic interaction found to be driven by yardstick competition, rather than competition for a mobile tax base. The final chapter differs from the rest in that it utilizes data from 18 OECD countries. The essay analyzes the effects of decentralization of government on the size and composition of government spending. Since jurisdictions with limited geographic scope (such as local governments) are, in general, more likely to face greater competitive pressures than larger ones (such as countries), it follows that the more fiscally decentralized countries are expected to experience stronger fiscal competition. One of the key findings is that decentralization of taxing powers is associated with less transfer spending, but unrelated to government consumption.</p> / Paper I reprinted with kind permission of Elsevier, Sciencedirect.com

While competition among companies tends to be beneficial for the general public, this is not necessarily the case for competition among governments. Key in the fiscal competition theory is that the mobility of firms and households yields incentives for governments to aim to improve their relative position through successive undercutting of tax rates and welfare state arrangements. This mechanism has the potential to work as a disciplining device because it ensures that no jurisdiction is allowed to be grossly inefficient, because if it were grossly inefficient, mobile factors of production would move away. The main concern in the theoretical fiscal competition literature, however, has been that fiscal competition lowers government spending below their efficient levels. Another concern related to fiscal competition is that household mobility is likely to undermine attempts by governments to redistribute income. Empirical evaluation of both the existence and consequences of fiscal competition is the central topic of the thesis “An Empirical Analysis of Decentralization, Fiscal Competition and Welfare Policy”. A particular focus of this thesis is on fiscal competition in welfare policy. With decentralized responsibility for the welfare benefit system in Norway, theory predicts that local governments will behave strategically in setting their welfare policy in order to avoid becoming ‘welfare magnets’. The key finding in Chapter 2 of this thesis is that Norwegian local governments in fact engage in such a ‘welfare game’. A local government will respond with reducing their welfare benefits when neighboring local governments reduce their welfare benefits. Encouraged by the finding in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 seeks to answer the question: Does Welfare Policy Affect Residential Choices? The analysis shows that Norwegian welfare recipients respond to changes in welfare policy by migrating. Local politicians concern about being to generous compared to their peers seem warranted. The analysis in Chapter 4 evaluates whether strategic interaction among Norwegian local governments in property tax decisions occurs. With limited mobility of the tax base and politically highly visible decisions, we interpret the strategic interaction found to be driven by yardstick competition, rather than competition for a mobile tax base. The final chapter differs from the rest in that it utilizes data from 18 OECD countries. The essay analyzes the effects of decentralization of government on the size and composition of government spending. Since jurisdictions with limited geographic scope (such as local governments) are, in general, more likely to face greater competitive pressures than larger ones (such as countries), it follows that the more fiscally decentralized countries are expected to experience stronger fiscal competition. One of the key findings is that decentralization of taxing powers is associated with less transfer spending, but unrelated to government consumption. / Paper I reprinted with kind permission of Elsevier, Sciencedirect.com

Entre 1945 et 2008, le nombre de pays reconnus internationalement a augmenté de 74 à 193 (Spolaore, 2008). Plus récemment, plusieurs pays ont vécu une vague croissante de décentralisation. Dans les pays de l’OCDE, par exemple, le nombre de gouvernements infranationaux a atteint 140 000 en 2014. De plus, ces gouvernements infranationaux ont une influence croissante dans ces pays (OCDE, 2014). Compte tenu de ces tendances vers une décentralisation croissante, cette thèse étudie deux aspects de celle-ci : la concurrence fiscale, et le choix endogène des frontières. En matière de concurrence fiscale, cette thèse étudie la mise aux enchères de nouveaux investissements par une firme à plusieurs établissements. Le but de cette analyse est d’étudier le comportement stratégique de la firme dans ce type de concurrence. En effet, contrairement à la littérature déjà existante qui ne considère que des firmes qui ne produisent qu’en un endroit, le premier chapitre de thèse montre que la firme peut modifier l’allocation de ses investissements en les différenciant, pour attirer des subsides plus élevés. Dans le deuxième chapitre, la thèse étudie comment l’ajout de coûts en infrastructure pour les régions avant la mise aux enchères affecte la concurrence entre les régions ainsi que le comportement de la firme. En matière de choix endogène des frontières, cette thèse fournit deux analyses: une empirique, et une expérimentale. Dans le troisième chapitre, la thèse étudie la décision d’électeurs dans 213 villes du Québec de quitter une fusion municipale qui leur fût imposée quelques années auparavant. L’analyse révèle que les électeurs choisissent de faire sécession d’autant plus quand les différences de revenus et de langue entre leur ville et les autres villes dans la même fusion sont plus élevées. L’analyse révèle aussi que ces deux facteurs ne sont pas indépendants. En effet, les différences de revenus ont un effet plus prononcé sur le vote sécessionniste lorsque les différences de langue sont aussi élevées. Étant donné l’importance de la langue comme groupe ethno-linguistique au Québec, les résultats de ce chapitre suggèrent que le choix des électeurs est sensible aux différences ethniques, et non seulement à des différences de goût pour les biens publics, comme suggéré par Alesina, Baqir et Hoxby (2004). Finalement, le dernier chapitre présente les résultats d’un expérience en laboratoire sur le lien entre décentralisation et sécession. La littérature sur le sujet suggère l’existence de deux effets contradictoires. La décentralisation pourrait permettre de contrer les mouvements de sécession en permettant aux régions de prendre plus de décisions à un niveau local, mais pourrait aussi fournir des ressources supplémentaires aux mouvements sécessionnistes, ce qui renforcerait les tendances vers la séparation. Les résultats de l’expérience montre que l’effet total de la décentralisation est de diminuer la probabilité de votes pour la sécession. / Between 1945 and 2008, the number of internationally-recognised countries grew from 74 to 193 (Spolaore, 2008). More recently, many countries experienced increasing decentralisation. In OECD countries, for example, the number of sub-national governments reached 140,000 in 2014. Moreover, these sub-national governments have an increasing influence in these countries (OECD, 2014). Given these trends towards an increasing decentralisation, this thesis studies two aspects of it: fiscal competition, and the endogenous choice of borders. In terms of fiscal competition, this thesis studies the competition between regional governments to attract one of a firm's new plants. The goal of this analysis is to study the strategic behaviour of the firm in such competitions or location contests. Indeed, in contrast to the existing literature on the subject that considers only firms producing in a single location, the first chapter of this thesis shows that the firm can modify its allocation of production across sites by differentiating the plants, thus attracting larger subsidies. In the second chapter, this thesis studies how the addition of prior investment in infrastructure by the regions before the location contest affects both the competition between the regions, and the behaviour of the firm. In terms of endogenous border choice, this thesis provides two analyses: one empirical and one experimental. In the third chapter, this thesis studies the decision of voters in 213 cities of Quebec to secede from a municipal merger that was imposed to them a few years earlier. The analysis reveals that voters choose secession more when the language and income differences between their own town and the other towns in the same merger are larger. The analysis also reveals that these two effects are not independent. Indeed, income differences have a larger effect when language differences are also large. Given the importance of language differences in the formation of ethnic groups in Quebec, these results suggest that the choice of voters is sensitive to ethnic differences, and not only to differences in preferences for public goods, as suggested by Alesina, Baqir, and Hoxby (2004). Finally, the last chapter presents the results of a laboratory experiment on the relationship between decentralisation and secession. The literature on the subject suggests the existence of two opposite effects. Decentralisation could quell secessionist movements by giving regions more liberty to take their own public goods decisions, but could also provide additional ressources to secessionist movements, which would reinforce secessionist movements. The results of the experiment show that the total effect of decentralisation is to decrease to probability of votes for secession.

[pt] Os reais efeitos da tributação sobre a economia só podem ser entendidos se levada em conta a resposta dos agentes econômicos a essa tributação. Esta dissertação trata de dois possíveis tipos de resposta das firmas ao serem taxadas: mudança da forma de organização e de localização. A primeira parte da dissertação mostra como a estrutura de taxação da renda no Brasil incentiva profissionais liberais a se organizarem como pessoa jurídica. A análise empírica, feita com microdados da ECINF, indica que a decisão desses profissionais de constituir pessoa jurídica está fortemente relacionada a parâmetros tributários. A segunda parte da dissertação estuda o caso de dois municípios na região metropolitana de São Paulo que reduziram drasticamente as alíquotas de ISS durante a década de 90, participando de uma espécie de guerra fiscal a nível municipal. Analisando dados da RAIS de 1994 a 2000 encontramos evidências de que esse corte na alíquota atraiu um número significativo de firmas para os dois municípios. Entretanto, o número de empregos criados nos setores de serviços não acompanhou o expressivo aumento no número de firmas. Nos dois casos estudados, há evidências de que grande parte das firmas muda de comportamento com o objetivo principal de diminuir o montante de imposto devido; estas mudanças sendo, na realidade, mecanismos de planejamento tributário. / [en] The real impact of taxes on the economy can only be assessed when we consider the behavioral responses of economic agents due to these taxes. Two kinds of responses are studied in this thesis: changes in organizational form and location choices. The first part of this study shows how income taxation in Brazil gives incentives to some classes of taxpayers to incorporate in order to reduce their tax burden. Microdata on these taxpayers indicate that the probability of incorporation is strongly related to tax rules. The second part of the study uses the case of two cities engaged in fiscal competition in order to measure the sensitivity of firm s location choices to municipal tax rates. Firm data show that these two cities, located in the greater São Paulo area, were able to attract a large number of firms to their territory. However, data from firms surveys indicate that the number of jobs did not grow accordingly. In both cases studied, there are evidences that firms change their behaviour with the main objective of avoiding taxes.

[pt] Nos anos 90, surge no Brasil um debate polêmico e polarizado sobre as guerras fiscais dos entes federativos para atrair investimentos para seus territórios. A literatura sobre essas disputas analisa esse fenômeno por perspectivas de racionalidade exclusivamente econômica, quando não puramente tributarista. Entretanto, essa questão envolve aspectos políticos e institucionais que dificilmente poderiam ser satisfatoriamente capturados por esse tipo análise. Além disso, essas análises têm negligenciado um aspecto fundamental do processo de implementação das políticas industriais desses estados subnacionais: os governos aprendem, as políticas evoluem. Nesse sentido, considerando o aprendizado como elemento central na determinação dos resultados futuros dessas políticas, o objetivo geral desta tese é descrever e analisar a dinâmica dos processos de aprendizado envolvidos em sua implementação, explorando em profundidade os aspectos políticos e institucionais desse processo. Para atingir esse objetivo, além de extensa revisão da literatura sobre aprendizado nas organizações e sobre guerras fiscais e áreas afins, foram realizados estudos de casos em três estados brasileiros: Bahia, Ceará e Pernambuco. Foi utilizado nesses estudos de casos o método de process tracing, ou seja, foram explorados a cadeia de eventos e os processos de tomada de decisão envolvidos na implementação das políticas industriais da Bahia, do Ceará e de Pernambuco para entender se - e como - o aprendizado na implementação dessas políticas realmente ocorria. Assim, foram reveladas nesta pesquisa duas descobertas importantes sobre os processos de aprendizado ocorridos na implementação das políticas industriais desses estados que, provavelmente, não são exclusivas desses casos. A primeira é que o aprendizado organizacional envolvido na implementação dessas políticas resulta de processos complexos nos quais aspectos políticos e cognitivos interagem sob as restrições de arranjos institucionais específicos, sendo, também, afetados pela dinâmica das disputas por primazia ou por sobrevivência entre instituições concorrentes dentro dos governos. A segunda é que, devido às necessidades e aspirações predominantemente imediatistas dos atores políticos envolvidos nesse processo, acentua-se o desequilíbrio entre o aprendizado que tem impactos predominantemente de curto prazo e o aprendizado que tem impactos sobre questões mais estruturais e de longo prazo, favorecendo o desenvolvimento mais rápido do primeiro em detrimento do segundo. A tese está assim estruturada: primeiramente, é abordado, de forma resumida, o debate atual sobre as "guerras fiscais" e é desenvolvida uma extensa revisão da literatura sobre aprendizado nas organizações; em seguida, são descritos os processos de evolução das políticas industriais descentralizadas dos estados da Bahia, do Ceará e de Pernambuco ao longo dos anos 90 e início da década atual, para então ser feita uma descrição aprofundada e analítica dos processos de aprendizado envolvidos na implementação dessas políticas; e, por fim, são apresentadas, resumidamente, as principais conclusões desse trabalho e exploradas as principais implicações de política que emergem de suas descobertas. / [en] In the nineties, emerge in Brazil a polemic and polarized debate on the fiscal wars among sub national states in the attraction of investments. The literature on fiscal wars analyses that phenomenon through perspectives that involve an exclusively economic rationality, whe n not merely fiscal. However, that issue involves political and institutional aspects that could not be captured satisfactorily by that type of analysis. Besides, they have been neglecting a fundamental aspect of the implementation process of those policies: the governments learn, the policies evolve. In that sense, considering learning as a central aspect in the determination of those policies futures results, the general objective of this doctoral dissertation is to describe and analyze the dynamics of the learning processes involved in their implementation, exploring exhaustively the political and institutional aspects involved in that process. To reach this goal, along with an extensive literature review on organizational learning and on fiscal wars and related areas, cases studies were accomplished in three Brazilian states: Bahia, Ceará and Pernambuco. It was used in these cases studies the process tracing method, namely, the chain of events and the processes of decision-making involved were explored to understand if and how the learning in the implementation of those policies really happened. Thus, two important findings were revealed in this research. First, the organizational learning involved in the implementation of those policies results from complex processes in which political and cognitive aspects interact under the restrictions of specific institutional arrangements, being, also, affected by the dynamics of the disputes for primacy or for survival among competitive institutions inside the go vernments. Secondly, due to the political actors more urgent needs and aspirations, the unbalance between the learning that has short-range impacts and the learning that has long-range impacts is accentuated, favoring the former over the latter. This doctoral dissertation is structured as follow: first, it is approached, in a summarized way, the current debate on fiscal wars and developed an extensive literature review on organizational learning; then it is discussed the evolution processes of Bahia, Ceará and Pernambuco industrial policies in the last 15 years and done an analytic description of the learning processes involved in those policies implementation; and, finally, it is presented a summary with the main conclusions of this work and explored the main policy implications that emerge from its findings.

The main contribution of this thesis is a comprehensive analysis of the influence of changes in the population structure on local communities, in particular with respect to the provision of publicly provided goods. The focus is placed on the consequences of two of the major processes of demographic change, namely aging and shrinking. The three main chapters of this contribution consider the effects at the local level from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective. The first model focuses on the influence of population aging on the provision of local publicly provided goods, when the young population may relocate. When aging advances, gerontocracies and social planners substitute publicly provided goods aimed at the mobile young for publicly provided goods for the elderly. However, due to fiscal competition, gerontocracies will provide even more of the publicly provided good for the young than the social planner. The second model considers in a two-period setting, the interaction of a shrinking population when the investments made by the previous generation are long lived. The laissez-faire and welfare maximizing outcomes are computed for two cases; first with no costs of upkeep and second for the case when costs of upkeep accrue. A comparison of the solutions shows that public provision for the first generation is inefficiently low in laissez-faire when there are no costs of upkeep. However, if costs of upkeep accrue, the laissez-faire outcome for the intergenerational publicly provided good may be too high. Chapter four contains an empirical analysis. In a two-stage analysis the efficiency of the provision of child care services in municipalities is evaluated in the German State of Saxony. First, the results of the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) show substantial efficiency differences; the median municipality is up to 28% inefficient. In a second stage bootstrapped truncated regression, determinants of the inefficiency are identified. Explanatory variables such as an uncompensated mayor or a larger share of over 65-year-olds significantly increase inefficiency.

Nesta tese propõe-se responder a três principais questões: No primeiro ensaio estuda-se o impacto dos investimentos privados de multinacionais do setor automobilístico no Brasil sobre o crescimento da atividade econômica dos municípios. Os resultados obtidos sugerem que as cidades onde se instalam este tipo de investimentos alcançam um desempenho superior aos outros grupos de municípios sem este recurso. Estes resultados apontam para uma subprovisão de bens públicos esperada em todo agrupamento de cidades, e um crescimento da atividade industrial no grupo de municípios de domicílio dos investimentos em detrimento a um crescimento abaixo da média do grupo de controle dos municípios adjacentes. No segundo ensaio proposto nesta tese, levanta-se a questão sobre qual o impacto do investimento em infraestrutura viária sobre a economia dos municípios do estado de Santa Catarina. Para responder esta questão, o método de regressão de dados em painel foi utilizado para identificar e mensurar o efeito do investimento público em rodovias interestaduais sobre o crescimento econômico municipal. Os resultados apontam para um efeito positivo sobre os municípios adjacentes e aqueles cortados pela rodovia federal. O setor agropecuário tende a perder valor agregado dado uma possível realocação de recursos para o setor de serviços e indústria de transformação. No terceiro e último ensaio, sobre a dinâmica da distribuição espacial da população no Brasil, tem-se como ideia central testar a Lei de Zipf tendo por base as estimativas da dinâmica populacional dos municípios brasileiros e seus limites populacionais (K). Recentes trabalhos na área de economia regional e urbana, e da nova geografia econômica (NGE), retomam o tema sobre a distribuição espacial da população entre as cidades. A principal questão neste ensaio é descobrir sobre a existência de uma tendência na distribuição do tamanho dos municípios brasileiros a atender a Lei de Zipf. Após as estimativas para um estado estacionário na dinâmica populacional dos municípios brasileiros e as estimativas por regressão quantílica da lei de potência, rejeitou-se em quase a totalidade das amostras a existência de um expoente igual a -1. / In this thesis propose to reply three principals’ questions. In the first essay examines the impact of private investment of multinational automobile industry in Brazil about the growth of economic activity of municipalities. The results obtained suggest that the municipalities that settle the investments reach a performance superior to other groups of municipalities. These results point to a underprovision expected of public goods in all groups of municipalities and increasing industrial activity in the municipalities of domicile of the investment over a growth below the average of the control group of adjacent municipalities. In the second essay proposed in this thesis, the question is about what the impact of highway infrastructure investment on the economy of the municipalities in the State of Santa Catarina. To answer this question makes use of panel date regression method to identify and measure the effect of public investment on the municipal economic growth. The results does are positive on the neighbouring and crossways interstate highway, the agriculture sector loses added value due a possible relocation of resources to service and manufacture sector. In the third essay, on the dynamics of spatial distribution of population in the Brazil, the core insight this is to test the Zipf’s Law from estimates of population dynamics of Brazilian municipalities and their population limits (K). Lately, studies on the approach of urban and regional economy and of new economic geography (NEG) recovers’ theme on the spatial distribution of population among cities. The central question in this essay, is whether there is a trend in the distribution of sizes of municipalities meet Zipf's law? After estimates for a steady state in the population dynamics of Brazilian municipalities and estimates for regression quantiles power law rejected in almost all of the samples the presence of an exponent equal to-1.

Nesta tese propõe-se responder a três principais questões: No primeiro ensaio estuda-se o impacto dos investimentos privados de multinacionais do setor automobilístico no Brasil sobre o crescimento da atividade econômica dos municípios. Os resultados obtidos sugerem que as cidades onde se instalam este tipo de investimentos alcançam um desempenho superior aos outros grupos de municípios sem este recurso. Estes resultados apontam para uma subprovisão de bens públicos esperada em todo agrupamento de cidades, e um crescimento da atividade industrial no grupo de municípios de domicílio dos investimentos em detrimento a um crescimento abaixo da média do grupo de controle dos municípios adjacentes. No segundo ensaio proposto nesta tese, levanta-se a questão sobre qual o impacto do investimento em infraestrutura viária sobre a economia dos municípios do estado de Santa Catarina. Para responder esta questão, o método de regressão de dados em painel foi utilizado para identificar e mensurar o efeito do investimento público em rodovias interestaduais sobre o crescimento econômico municipal. Os resultados apontam para um efeito positivo sobre os municípios adjacentes e aqueles cortados pela rodovia federal. O setor agropecuário tende a perder valor agregado dado uma possível realocação de recursos para o setor de serviços e indústria de transformação. No terceiro e último ensaio, sobre a dinâmica da distribuição espacial da população no Brasil, tem-se como ideia central testar a Lei de Zipf tendo por base as estimativas da dinâmica populacional dos municípios brasileiros e seus limites populacionais (K). Recentes trabalhos na área de economia regional e urbana, e da nova geografia econômica (NGE), retomam o tema sobre a distribuição espacial da população entre as cidades. A principal questão neste ensaio é descobrir sobre a existência de uma tendência na distribuição do tamanho dos municípios brasileiros a atender a Lei de Zipf. Após as estimativas para um estado estacionário na dinâmica populacional dos municípios brasileiros e as estimativas por regressão quantílica da lei de potência, rejeitou-se em quase a totalidade das amostras a existência de um expoente igual a -1. / In this thesis propose to reply three principals’ questions. In the first essay examines the impact of private investment of multinational automobile industry in Brazil about the growth of economic activity of municipalities. The results obtained suggest that the municipalities that settle the investments reach a performance superior to other groups of municipalities. These results point to a underprovision expected of public goods in all groups of municipalities and increasing industrial activity in the municipalities of domicile of the investment over a growth below the average of the control group of adjacent municipalities. In the second essay proposed in this thesis, the question is about what the impact of highway infrastructure investment on the economy of the municipalities in the State of Santa Catarina. To answer this question makes use of panel date regression method to identify and measure the effect of public investment on the municipal economic growth. The results does are positive on the neighbouring and crossways interstate highway, the agriculture sector loses added value due a possible relocation of resources to service and manufacture sector. In the third essay, on the dynamics of spatial distribution of population in the Brazil, the core insight this is to test the Zipf’s Law from estimates of population dynamics of Brazilian municipalities and their population limits (K). Lately, studies on the approach of urban and regional economy and of new economic geography (NEG) recovers’ theme on the spatial distribution of population among cities. The central question in this essay, is whether there is a trend in the distribution of sizes of municipalities meet Zipf's law? After estimates for a steady state in the population dynamics of Brazilian municipalities and estimates for regression quantiles power law rejected in almost all of the samples the presence of an exponent equal to-1.