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Juniorprofessorin Catherine van der List, Ph.D.

Aktuelle Position

seit 9/24

Junior Research Affiliate

Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Halle (IWH)

seit 9/23

Assistant Professor

University of Essex

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Forschungsschwerpunkte
  • Arbeitsmarkt
  • Regionalpolitik

Catherine van der List ist seit September 2024 Junior Research Affiliate am IWH. Sie interessiert sich besonders für den Arbeitsmarkt und Regionalpolitk.

Catherine van der List unterrichtet an der University of Essex. 2023 promovierte sie an der University of British Columbia.

Ihr Kontakt

Juniorprofessorin Catherine van der List, Ph.D.
- Abteilung Zentrum für evidenzbasierte Politikberatung
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Arbeitspapiere

Declining Free Lunch: State Capacity and Foregone Public Spending

Sarah Fritz Lorenzo Incoronato Catherine van der List

in: RFBerlin Discussion Paper, Nr. 67, 2025

Abstract

This paper documents substantial fiscal waste in the context of one the world’s largest regional development programs – the EU Cohesion Policy. We study Italy, and find that 20% of funding commitments are never paid out and funneled into unfinished or never-started projects. In our setting, this happens for reasons unrelated to fiscal constraints – municipalities appear to simply leave money on the table. Foregone spending is more prevalent in Southern regions, but there is also stark variation across municipalities within regions. We show that such under-utilization of available funds is strongly associated with limited administrative capacity of local governments.

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Reshaping the Economy? Local Reallocation Effects of Place-Based Policies

Sarah Fritz Catherine van der List

in: CESifo, Nr. 12031, July 2025

Abstract

We study the effects of place-based policies on aggregate productivity using administrative data on projects co-financed by the EU in Italy linked to balance sheet data. We exploit quasi-experimental variation in funding for a large place-based policy stemming from measurement error in regional GDP estimates. Results show that the policy likely decreases productivity. Decompositions reveal that aggregate declines are driven by reallocation of labor to low-productivity firms. Mechanism analysis using firm-level event studies reveals that negative reallocation effects are caused by high-productivity firms taking up the funds and subsequently becoming more liquidity constrained, leading to slowdowns in employment growth.

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