The 2019 AFSE PhD Prize has been awarded to Tidiane Ly for his thesis entitled “Tax competition within Metropolitan areas”, conducted at the University of Lyon 2 under the supervision of Florence Goffette-Nagot and Sonia Paty. The jury was really impressed by the originality, the quality and the rigor of the work carried out. The jury also greatly appreciated Tidiane’s wish to provide policy recommendations from his theoretical investigations and findings. Indeed, his thesis helps municipalities and lower-level jurisdictions in their policy instrument choice, and suggests that reforming the local institutional context requires to account for the specific responses of local governments.