Spatial Spillover and Silent Stakeholders: The Local Political Economy of Commuting

My dissertation examines a puzzle at the heart of modern local democracy: why do some communities resist economic development, even when it promises jobs, investment, and tax revenue?

I argue that cross-boundary commuting—where people live in one municipality but work in another—fundamentally reshapes local politics. Over 45% of German workers and more than half of U.S. workers now commute across municipal lines, creating a critical mismatch between who benefits from local economic growth and who votes on it.

The core dynamic is straightforward: in-commuters benefit from job opportunities and higher wages in a municipality but can't vote there, while out-commuters vote at home yet earn their income elsewhere. Meanwhile, the costs of development—pollution, congestion, noise—remain concentrated where production occurs. Because local politicians are only accountable to residents who can vote, they have strong incentives to prioritize livability over growth, even when this reduces overall economic welfare.

To test this theory, I draw on evidence from Germany, the United States, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. I combine administrative data on commuting flows and public spending, original survey experiments, and interviews with local officials and residents. My preliminary findings show that municipalities with higher commuting systematically invest less in productive infrastructure and more in residential amenities, and that they strategically reduce road density near municipal borders to limit spillovers to neighboring communities.

This research contributes to our understanding of spatial inequality, decentralized governance, and the geography of political representation. It helps explain why the benefits and burdens of economic development are increasingly misaligned in modern democracies—and why that matters for both local communities and broader patterns of growth.