IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v85y1995i1p25-45.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Incumbent Behavior: Vote-Seeking, Tax-Setting, and Yardstick Competition

Author

Listed:
  • Besley, Timothy
  • Case, Anne

Abstract

This paper develops a model of the political economy of tax-setting in a multijurisdictional world where voters' choices and incumbent behavior are determined simultaneously. Voters are assumed to make comparisons between jurisdictions to overcome political agency problems. This forces incumbents into a (yardstick) competition in which they care about what other incumbents are doing. The authors provide a theoretical framework and empirical evidence using U.S. state data from 1960 to 1988. The results are encouraging to the view that vote-seeking and tax-setting are tied together through the nexus of yardstick competition. Copyright 1995 by American Economic Association.

Suggested Citation

  • Besley, Timothy & Case, Anne, 1995. "Incumbent Behavior: Vote-Seeking, Tax-Setting, and Yardstick Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 25-45, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:85:y:1995:i:1:p:25-45
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8282%28199503%2985%3A1%3C25%3AIBVTAY%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2&origin=repec
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Case, Anne C, 1991. "Spatial Patterns in Household Demand," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(4), pages 953-965, July.
    2. Epple, Dennis & Zelenitz, Allan, 1981. "The Implications of Competition among Jurisdictions: Does Tiebout Need Politics?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(6), pages 1197-1217, December.
    3. Heckman, James J, 1978. "Dummy Endogenous Variables in a Simultaneous Equation System," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(4), pages 931-959, July.
    4. Sundadam, R.K. & Banks, J., 1991. "Adverse Selection and Moral hazard in a Repeated Elections Models," RCER Working Papers 283, University of Rochester - Center for Economic Research (RCER).
    5. Rubinfeld, Daniel L., 1987. "The economics of the local public sector," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 11, pages 571-645, Elsevier.
    6. Paul R. Milgrom, 1981. "Good News and Bad News: Representation Theorems and Applications," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(2), pages 380-391, Autumn.
    7. Rogoff, Kenneth, 1990. "Equilibrium Political Budget Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 21-36, March.
    8. Henderson, J Vernon, 1985. "The Tiebout Model: Bring Back the Entrepreneurs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(2), pages 248-264, April.
    9. Epple, Dennis & Romer, Thomas & Filimon, Radu, 1988. "Community development with endogenous land use controls," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 133-162, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ferreira, Fernando, 2010. "You can take it with you: Proposition 13 tax benefits, residential mobility, and willingness to pay for housing amenities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 661-673, October.
    2. Graham Crampton, 1996. "Local Government Structure and Urban Residential Location," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 33(7), pages 1061-1076, August.
    3. Carlos A. Ponzio, 1998. "Competencia entre jurisdicciones y la ineficiencia de los gobiernos locales," Estudios Económicos, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos, vol. 13(2), pages 171-195.
    4. Tidiane Ly, 2018. "Sub-metropolitan tax competition with household and capital mobility," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(5), pages 1129-1169, October.
    5. Wildasin, David E. & Wilson, John Douglas, 1996. "Imperfect mobility and local government behaviour in an overlapping-generations model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 177-198, May.
    6. David Stadelmann & Steve Billon, 2012. "Capitalisation of Fiscal Variables and Land Scarcity," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(7), pages 1571-1594, May.
    7. Boarnet, Marlon G. & Glazer, Amihai, 2002. "Federal grants and yardstick competition," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 53-64, July.
    8. Raphaël Soubeyran, 2009. "Does a Disadvantaged Candidate Choose an Extremist Position?," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 93-94, pages 301-326.
    9. Caselli, Francesco & Morelli, Massimo & Moreno de Barreda, Inés & Cunningham, Tom, 2012. "Signalling, Incumbency Advantage, and Optimal Reelection Thresholds," CEPR Discussion Papers 8832, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Raphaël Soubeyran, 2006. "Valence Advantages and Public Goods Consumption: Does a Disadvantaged Candidate Choose an Extremist Position?," Working Papers 2006.84, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    11. Renato Camodeca & Alex Almici & Umberto Sagliaschi, 2018. "Sustainability Disclosure in Integrated Reporting: Does It Matter to Investors? A Cheap Talk Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-34, November.
    12. Juan Carlos Berganza, 2000. "Politicians, voters and electoral processes: an overview," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 24(3), pages 501-543, September.
    13. Steven C. Deller & David L. Chicoine, 1993. "Representative Versus Direct Democracy: a Test of Allocative Efficiency in Local Government Expenditures," Public Finance Review, , vol. 21(1), pages 100-114, January.
    14. Göbel, Jürgen, 2009. "In search of an appropriate tax base for local Leviathans," MPRA Paper 13940, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Hoyt, William H., 1999. "Leviathan, local government expenditures, and capitalization," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 155-171, March.
    16. Fernandez, R. & Rogerson, R., 1992. "Income Distribution, Communities and the Quality of Public Education: A Policy Analysis," Papers 1, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    17. Pascal Gautier & Raphael Soubeyran, 2005. "Political Cycles : The Opposition Advantage," Working Papers 2005.129, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    18. Fernando Ferreira & Joseph Gyourko, 2009. "Do Political Parties Matter? Evidence from U.S. Cities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 124(1), pages 399-422.
    19. Garasky, Steven & Haurin, Donald R., 1997. "Tiebout Revisited: Redrawing Jurisdictional Boundaries," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 366-376, November.
    20. Stephen Mehay & Kenneth Seiden, 1986. "Municipal residency laws and local public budgets," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 27-35, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:85:y:1995:i:1:p:25-45. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.