It is generally assumed that municipalities attract residents and businesses as a result of intermunicipal competition for tax revenues. This growth-oriented behaviour poses a serious problem considering internationally acknowledged goals to limit land take. Nonetheless, research on how fiscal incentives affect municipal land policies is scarce. Adapting a neoinstitutionalist approach, we compare the two contrasting fiscal systems of Germany and the Netherlands. While clear incentives can be deducted from the different sources of municipal income, complex balancing measurements and consequential infrastructure investments make it difficult to predict a project’s profitability. According to the perspective of planning practitioners in municipalities around the growth centres of Utrecht and Berlin interviewed for this study, local pressures force them to keep allocating new building sites. In order to create effective policies to limit land take, it is important to understand not only the influence of fiscal incentives but also of place-specific pressures on municipal land policies.

中文翻译：

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市政当局为何发展：财政激励措施对德国和荷兰市政土地政策的影响


人们普遍认为，城市吸引居民和企业是城市间税收竞争的结果。考虑到国际公认的限制土地占用的目标，这种以增长为导向的行为构成了严重的问题。尽管如此，关于财政激励如何影响市政土地政策的研究却很少。采用新制度主义方法，我们比较了德国和荷兰两种截然不同的财政体系。虽然可以从不同的市政收入来源中扣除明确的激励措施，但复杂的平衡衡量和随之而来的基础设施投资使得预测项目的盈利能力变得困难。根据接受本研究采访的乌得勒支和柏林增长中心周边城市的规划从业者的观点，当地压力迫使他们不断分配新的建筑用地。为了制定有效的政策来限制土地占用，重要的是不仅要了解财政激励措施的影响，还要了解地方特定压力对市政土地政策的影响。