Beginning with Tiebout (1956), numerous studies have argued that we should expect to see differences in public services among localities as a result of people "voting with their feet". Here, we consider differentiation in public services as a way of reducing competition among localities (cities). If cities finance their public services with a property tax that generates "tax competition", we find that adoption of quality differentiation in the public services will change the amount of services provided. If the cities maximize property values, this means a reduction in the level of public services provided for both the city that provides high quality as well as with low quality. The reduction in public services in both cities means that under certain conditions property values in both cities can increase. Thus in a two-stage game of adoption, we can observe quality differentiation in the services when the property tax is used. This is in sharp contrast to the case with a head tax in which we should never observe this type of differentiation. We believe quality differentiation might be particularly relevant to the provision of primary and secondary education. We argue that the extent of the differentiation in the quality and type of educational services provided among school districts might be in part a response to the detrimental effects of tax competition rather than entirely a "Tiebout- like" response to differences in tastes.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Public Economics with number
9704001.
Length: 29 pages Date of creation: 08 Apr 1997 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwppe:9704001
Note: Type of Document - Binary Word for Windows (V.6/7) document; prepared on IBM PC Compat.; to print on HP LaserJet; pages: 29 . Contact details of provider: Web page: http://129.3.20.41
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (EconWPA).
Find related papers by JEL classification: H71 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance
References listed on IDEAS 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.:
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.)