Due to a reform of the local equalization scheme in 2003, a set of municipalities in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) increased their local property and business tax rates by one to two percentage points, while the remaining municipalities kept their rates constant. I use this variation across municipalities and over time to study the revenue and base effects of local property and business tax hikes in a generalized difference-in-differences design. The results suggest that the property tax hikes had even in the long-run a revenue elasticity of unity. Accordingly, I find no adverse effects on property tax bases. For the business tax, I find no significant effects on revenues and bases. Furthermore, there are also no effects on broader economic outcomes such as local employment, firms’ wage bill, and property prices. Overall, increasing local tax rates by one to two percentage points does not seem to affect the local economy adversely.

由于2003年对地方均等计划进行了改革，德国北莱茵-威斯特法伦州（NRW）的一组城市将其地方财产税和营业税率提高了1-2个百分点，而其余城市则将其税率保持不变持续的。我使用这种变化在各个城市之间以及随着时间的推移，以广义的差异设计来研究本地财产和营业税增加的收入和基本影响。结果表明，从长远来看，财产税的提高甚至具有统一的收入弹性。因此，我发现对物业税基数没有不利影响。对于营业税，我发现对营业额和基数没有重大影响。此外，也不会影响更广泛的经济成果，例如本地就业，公司的工资单和房地产价格。全面的，