Laura Varela-Candamio, Fernando Rubiera Morollón, Gohar Sedrakyan
Urban sprawl and local fiscal burden: analysing the Spanish case
in: Peter Huber, Dieter Pennerstorfer, Digitalization, Urban Sprawl and Regional Economics – Selected Papers of the 10th WIFO Regional Economics Workshop at the
Austrian Institute of Economic Research, Vienna, 25-26 September 2017
Urban sprawl is rapidly occurring in many Spanish urban areas. The objective of this paper is to evaluate how the trend of
building dispersion of new residential areas may be affecting the fiscal stability of local governments in Spain. The wide
diversity of the characteristics of Spanish urban areas as well as the existence of very similar local fiscal structures make
this case particularly interesting. After delimiting the urban areas and the spatial unit of analysis, a precise index of
urban sprawl, calculated with geo-referenced digital cartography, is used. Using the spatially disaggregated information of
taxes from the Spanish National Institute for Fiscal Studies allows for a measure of fiscal burden by local areas and the
ability to distinguish among types of taxes. Control variables are also available at the local level from the Spanish Census
and other databases. Two methods, quantile regressions and ordinary least squares, are used in order to measure not only the
average change but the heterogeneity across the distribution of the local fiscal burden associated with the changes in urban
sprawl, whilst controlling for other explanatory variables in the model. The results indicate that higher levels of urban
sprawl imply higher local fiscal burden. By tax categories, the phenomenon of urban sprawl particularly affects both local
indirect and direct taxation. These results suggest that local decision-makers should consider urban planning as one of the
fundamental tools to assure long-term local fiscal sustainability.
JEL-Codes:R1 R5 H7 H8
Keywords:Urban sprawl, Fiscal burden, Local public services, Geo-referenced digital cartography, Quantile regression Spain
Forschungsbereich:Regionalökonomie und räumliche Analyse