In this article, we make use of large-scale municipal border changes in Germany to provide the first evidence on the effect of local border changes on the distribution of activity in space. To allow for a comparison of economic activity within unique geographical units over time, we use geo-coded light data as well as local land-use data. Applying a difference-in-differences approach, we find evidence that municipalities absorbing their merger partners and hosting the new administrative center experience a significant increase in local activity, while the municipalities that are being absorbed and are losing the administrative center experience a decrease in such activity. The difference between the gains in activity from absorbing municipalities and the losses from absorbed ones is positive. These previously undocumented results point to the importance of distance to the administrative center as a determinant of the spatial distribution of economic activity.

中文翻译：

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地方边界改革和经济活动

在本文中，我们利用德国大规模的城市边界变化来提供地方边界变化对空间活动分布影响的第一个证据。为了比较不同地理单位内的经济活动随时间的变化，我们使用地理编码的灯光数据以及当地的土地利用数据。应用差异中的差异方法，我们发现有证据表明，吸收合并伙伴和托管新行政中心的市政当局的地方活动显着增加，而被吸收和失去行政中心的市政当局的此类活动减少活动。吸收城市的活动收益与吸收城市的损失之间的差异是正的。