Local Implementation-Capacity Frictions in Baden-Wuerttemberg
Non-peer-reviewed working paper on regional policy, state capacity, and territorial governance
This project asks where regional policy in Baden-Wuerttemberg is most likely to get stuck at the local implementation stage. The empirical object is a reproducible county-year diagnostic for the state’s 44 counties and urban counties over 2007-2024.
The live hierarchical State Capacity Friction Index summarizes administrative, infrastructure, and fiscal frictions on a fixed calibration scale. Transformation pressure is estimated separately, so the index does not simply rank places by urbanity, industrial structure, or fiscal stress. The data combine official regional, fiscal, labor-market, construction, accessibility, census, and traffic indicators with a public-source audit of administrative validation targets.
The current evidence suggests that implementation frictions are spatially patterned and most consistently associated with subsequent construction outcomes. I therefore interpret the index as a transparent regional-policy measurement device for prioritizing planning-capacity support, infrastructure-delivery analysis, and better administrative data collection.
Current manuscript: non-peer-reviewed working paper.