IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pubfin/v35y2007i6p669-688.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are Voting and Buying Behavior Consistent? Evidence from the South Carolina Education Lottery

Author

Listed:
  • Linda S. Ghent

    (Eastern Illinois University, Charleston)

  • Alan P. Grant

    (Eastern Illinois University, Charleston)

Abstract

This article uses voting and sales data from the South Carolina Education Lottery to test whether the vote for a new lottery is driven by latent demand for lottery products or whether it reflects free-riding behavior or other public finance considerations. Including the predicted component of the lottery vote adds no explanatory power to a lottery sales regression. Given the dissimilarity of coefficients between vote and sales regressions, we conclude that there are significant differences in individuals' voting and buying behaviors. We find that the lottery vote is significantly higher in counties with underperforming schools and in counties along the state's borders, where cross-border shopping is an issue. We conclude that much of the variation in the vote is driven by these public finance issues. Finally, we discover that creation of the South Carolina lottery drew substantial revenues from North Carolina shoppers and stemmed an outflow of revenue to Georgia.

Suggested Citation

  • Linda S. Ghent & Alan P. Grant, 2007. "Are Voting and Buying Behavior Consistent? Evidence from the South Carolina Education Lottery," Public Finance Review, , vol. 35(6), pages 669-688, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:35:y:2007:i:6:p:669-688
    DOI: 10.1177/1091142107299602
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1091142107299602
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1091142107299602?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Giacopassi & Mark W. Nichols & B. Grant Stitt, 2006. "Voting for a Lottery," Public Finance Review, , vol. 34(1), pages 80-100, January.
    2. Price, Donald I. & Novak, E. Shawn, 1999. "The Tax Incidence of Three Texas Lottery Games: Regressivity, Race, and Education," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 52(4), pages 741-752, December.
    3. Martin, Robert & Yandle, Bruce, 1990. "State Lotteries as Duopoly Transfer Mechanisms," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 64(3), pages 253-264, March.
    4. Alm, James & McKee, Michael J. & Skidmore, Mark, 1993. "Fiscal Pressure, Tax Competition, and the Introduction of State Lotteries," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 46(4), pages 463-476, December.
    5. Scott, Frank & Garen, John, 1994. "Probability of purchase, amount of purchase, and the demographic incidence of the lottery tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 121-143, May.
    6. Rubenstein, Ross & Scafidi, Benjamin, 2002. "Who Pays and Who Benefits? Examining the Distributional Consequences of the Georgia Lottery for Education," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 55(N. 2), pages 223-238, June.
    7. Thomas A. Garrett & Russell S. Sobel, 2004. "State Lottery Revenue: The Importance of Game Characteristics," Public Finance Review, , vol. 32(3), pages 313-330, May.
    8. Alm, James & McKee, Michael J. & Skidmore, Mark, 1993. "Fiscal Pressure, Tax Competition, and the Introduction of State Lotteries," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 46(4), pages 463-76, December.
    9. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    10. Garrett, Thomas A. & Marsh, Thomas L., 2002. "The revenue impacts of cross-border lottery shopping in the presence of spatial autocorrelation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 501-519, July.
    11. O. Homer Erekson & Glenn Platt & Christopher Whistler & Andrea Ziegert, 1999. "Factors influencing the adoption of state lotteries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(7), pages 875-884.
    12. John E. Filer & Donald L. Moak & Barry Uze, 1988. "Why Some States Adopt Lotteries and others Don'T," Public Finance Review, , vol. 16(3), pages 259-283, July.
    13. Price, Donald I. & Novak, E. Shawn, 1999. "The Tax Incidence of Three Texas Lottery Games: Regressivity, Race, and Education," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 52(n. 4), pages 741-52, December.
    14. Rubenstein, Ross & Scafidi, Benjamin, 2002. "Who Pays and Who Benefits? Examining the Distributional Consequences of the Georgia Lottery for Education," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 55(2), pages 223-238, June.
    15. Charles T. Clotfelter & Philip J. Cook, 1987. "Implicit Taxation in Lottery Finance," NBER Working Papers 2246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Mark Edward Stover, 1990. "Contiguous state lotteries: Substitutes or complements?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(4), pages 565-568.
    17. Franklin Mixon & Steven Caudill & Jon Ford & Ter Peng, 1997. "The rise (or fall) of lottery adoption within the logic of collective action: Some empirical evidence," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 21(1), pages 43-49, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kent Grote & Victor Matheson, 2011. "The Economics of Lotteries: A Survey of the Literature," Working Papers 1109, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    2. Ghent, Linda S. & Grant, Alan P., 2010. "The Demand for Lottery Products and Their Distributional Consequences," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 63(2), pages 253-268, June.

    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. Kent Grote & Victor Matheson, 2011. "The Economics of Lotteries: An Annotated Bibliography," Working Papers 1110, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    2. Garrett, Thomas A. & Coughlin, Cletus C., 2009. "Inter–Temporal Differences in the Income Elasticity of Demand for Lottery Tickets," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 62(1), pages 77-99, March.
    3. Humphreys, Brad & Perez, Levi, 2011. "Lottery Participants and Revenues: An International Survey of Economic Research on Lotteries," Working Papers 2011-17, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    4. Ghent, Linda S. & Grant, Alan P., 2010. "The Demand for Lottery Products and Their Distributional Consequences," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 63(2), pages 253-268, June.
    5. Thomas A. Garrett & Natalia A. Kolesnikova, 2010. "Local price variation and the tax incidence of state lotteries," Working Papers 2010-035, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    6. Douglas M. Walker & John D. Jackson, 2008. "Do U.S. Gambling Industries Cannibalize Each Other?," Public Finance Review, , vol. 36(3), pages 308-333, May.
    7. Thomas A. Garrett, 2011. "A closer look at the tax incidence of instant lottery games: an analysis by price point," Working Papers 2011-010, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    8. Kent Grote & Victor Matheson, 2011. "The Economics of Lotteries: A Survey of the Literature," Working Papers 1109, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    9. Horácio Faustino & Maria João Kaiseler & Rafael Marques, 2009. "Why Do People Buy Lottery Products?," Working Papers Department of Economics 2009/01, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    10. Peter Calcagno & Douglas Walker & John Jackson, 2010. "Determinants of the probability and timing of commercial casino legalization in the United States," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 69-90, January.
    11. Cletus C. Coughlin & Thomas A. Garrett & Ruben Hernandez-Murillo, 2004. "Spatial probit and the geographic patterns of state lotteries," Working Papers 2003-042, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    12. Skidmore, Mark & Serkan Tosun, Mehmet, 2008. "Do New Lottery Games Stimulate Retail Activity? Evidence from West Virginia Counties," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 38(1), pages 1-11.
    13. Cletus C. Coughlin & Thomas A. Garrett, 2009. "Income and Lottery Sales," Public Finance Review, , vol. 37(4), pages 447-469, July.
    14. Cho-Min Lin & Kung-Cheng Lin, 2007. "The demand for lottery expenditure in Taiwan: a quantile regression approach," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 4(42), pages 1-11.
    15. David Giacopassi & Mark W. Nichols & B. Grant Stitt, 2006. "Voting for a Lottery," Public Finance Review, , vol. 34(1), pages 80-100, January.
    16. Gabrielyan, Gnel & Just, David R., 2017. "Economic Factors Affecting Lottery Sales: An Examination of Maine State Lottery Sales," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258419, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Cletus C. Coughlin & Thomas A. Garrett, 2008. "Income and lottery sales: transfers trump income from work and wealth," Working Papers 2008-004, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    18. Richard A. Dunn & Michael A. Trousdale, 2015. "Estimating the Demand for Lottery Gambling," Public Finance Review, , vol. 43(6), pages 691-716, November.
    19. Thomas A. Garrett & Russell S. Sobel, 2004. "State Lottery Revenue: The Importance of Game Characteristics," Public Finance Review, , vol. 32(3), pages 313-330, May.
    20. Brown, Ryan P. & Rork, Jonathan C., 2005. "Copycat gaming: A spatial analysis of state lottery structure," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 795-807, November.

    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:sae:pubfin:v:35:y:2007:i:6:p:669-688. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.