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Yardstick competition and the political costs of raising taxes: An empirical analysis of Spanish municipalities

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Author Info
Núria Bosch
Albert Solé-Ollé ()

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Abstract

We test the ‘yardstick competition’ hypothesis by examining the effects of property tax increases, both in a given municipality and in other neighbouring jurisdictions, on the incumbents’ vote. In order to obtain unbiased estimates of the effects of raising taxes on voting patterns, we take into account national political shocks, the ideological preferences of the citizenship and government traits, and apply Instrumental Variables. The vote equation is estimated using a large database containing nearly 3,000 Spanish municipalities, and we analyse three local election results (1995, 1999 and 2003). Our results suggest that property tax increases, both at the municipal and neighbourhood level, have a non-negligible impact on the incumbent’s share of the vote. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2007

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File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10797-006-6348-1
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Publisher Info
Article provided by Springer in its journal International Tax and Public Finance.

Volume (Year): 14 (2007)
Issue (Month): 1 (February)
Pages: 71-92
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Handle: RePEc:kap:itaxpf:v:14:y:2007:i:1:p:71-92

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Web page: http://www.springerlink.com/link.asp?id=102915

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Related research
Keywords: Yardstick competition; Voting; Local government; Taxes;

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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  2. Bordignon, Massimo & Cerniglia, Floriana & Revelli, Federico, 2004. "Yardstick competition in intergovernmental relationships: theory and empirical predictions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 325-333, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Francisco Jose Veiga & Linda Goncalves Veiga, 2004. "Popularity functions, partisan effects, and support in Parliament," Economics and Politics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 16(1), pages 101-115, 03. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Buettner, Thiess, 2001. "Local business taxation and competition for capital: the choice of the tax rate," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2-3), pages 215-245, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Kenneth Rogoff, 1990. "Equilibrium Political Budget Cycles," NBER Working Papers 2428, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Ladd, Helen F., 1991. "Property tax revaluation and tax levy growth revisited," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 83-99, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Bloom, Howard S. & Ladd, Helen F., 1982. "Property tax revaluation and tax levy growth," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 73-84, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Craig Brett & Joris Pinkse, 2000. "The determinants of municipal tax rates in British Columbia," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 33(3), pages 695-714, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Andrei Shleifer, 1985. "A Theory of Yardstick Competition," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(3), pages 319-327, Autumn. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Revelli, Federico, 2001. "Spatial Patterns in Local Taxation: Tax Mimicking or Error Mimicking?," Applied Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 33(9), pages 1101-07, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Sole Olle, Albert, 2003. "Electoral accountability and tax mimicking: the effects of electoral margins, coalition government, and ideology," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 685-713, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Hausman, Jerry A, 1978. "Specification Tests in Econometrics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(6), pages 1251-71, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Revelli, Federico, 2002. "Local taxes, national politics and spatial interactions in English district election results," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 281-299, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Albert Solé Ollé, 2005. "The effects of party competition on budget outcomes: Empirical evidence from local governments in Spain," Working Papers 2005/2, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB). [Downloadable!]
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  15. Wrede, Matthias, 2001. "Yardstick competition to tame the Leviathan," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 705-721, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Peltzman, Sam, 1992. "Voters as Fiscal Conservatives," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 107(2), pages 327-61, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Stuart Landon & David L. Ryan, 1997. "The Political Costs of Taxes and Government Spending," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 30(1), pages 85-111, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. SALMON, Pierre, 1987. "Decentralization as an incentive scheme," Institut des Mathématiques Economiques – Document de travail de l’I.M.E. (1974-1993) 98, Institut des Mathématiques Economiques. LATEC, Laboratoire d'Analyse et des Techniques EConomiques, CNRS, Université de Bourgogne.
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  19. Bordignon, Massimo & Cerniglia, Floriana & Revelli, Federico, 2003. "In search of yardstick competition: a spatial analysis of Italian municipality property tax setting," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 199-217, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Kristien Werck & Bruno Heyndels & Benny Geys, 2008. "The impact of ‘central places’ on spatial spending patterns: evidence from Flemish local government cultural expenditures," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 35-58, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Shun-ichiro Bessho & Kimiko Terai, 2008. "Competition for Private Capital and Central Grants: The Case of Japanese Industrial Parks," Working Papers 080909, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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