IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v125y2005i3p385-407.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Legislative district configurations and fiscal policy in American States

Author

Listed:
  • John Bradbury
  • W. Crain

Abstract

In accordance with the median voter theorem the median legislator is decisive in representative democracy. If the preferences of the median legislator differ from the preferences of the median voter in the polity, fiscal policy choices will predictably diverge from those favored by the median voter. This paper seeks to identify the median district (and therein the preferences driving the median legislator) in American State legislatures. Using economic characteristics of constituents, we find substantial differences between the median district and the statewide median. As the income of the median district rises above the median income of the polity, government expenditures increase. In addition, the degree to which income is skewed across legislative districts affects spending for redistribution programs. Finally, we find that direct democracy procedures, which allow the statewide median voter to check legislative decisions, limit the impact of differences between the district and polity medians. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005

Suggested Citation

  • John Bradbury & W. Crain, 2005. "Legislative district configurations and fiscal policy in American States," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 125(3), pages 385-407, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:125:y:2005:i:3:p:385-407
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-005-3058-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11127-005-3058-7
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11127-005-3058-7?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
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Charles Bradbury & W. Mark Crain, 2002. "Bicameral Legislatures and Fiscal Policy," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 68(3), pages 646-659, January.
    2. Ram, Rati, 1987. "Wagner's Hypothesis in Time-Series and Cross-section Perspectives:," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(2), pages 194-204, May.
    3. Bergstrom, Theodore C & Goodman, Robert P, 1973. "Private Demands for Public Goods," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 280-296, June.
    4. Roberto Perotti, 1993. "Political Equilibrium, Income Distribution, and Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(4), pages 755-776.
    5. Pommerehne, Werner W & Frey, Bruno S, 1978. "Bureaucratic Behavior in Democracy: A Case Study," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 33(1-2), pages 98-112.
    6. Knight, Brian G., 2000. "Supermajority voting requirements for tax increases: evidence from the states," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 41-67, April.
    7. Sam Peltzman, 1992. "Voters as Fiscal Conservatives," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 327-361.
    8. Alberto Alesina & Dani Rodrik, 1994. "Distributive Politics and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 465-490.
    9. Romer, Thomas & Rosenthal, Howard, 1979. "The elusive median voter," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 143-170, October.
    10. Bohn, Henning & Inman, Robert P., 1996. "Balanced-budget rules and public deficits: evidence from the U.S. states," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 13-76, December.
    11. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65, pages 135-135.
    12. Chicoine, David L & Walzer, N & Deller, S C, 1989. "Representative vs. Direct Democracy and Government Spending in a Median Voter Model," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 44(2), pages 225-236.
    13. Gilligan, Thomas W & Matsusaka, John G, 1999. "Structural Constraints on Partisan Bias under the Efficient Gerrymander," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 100(1-2), pages 65-84, July.
    14. Allan Meltzer & Scott Richard, 1983. "Tests of a rational theory of the size of government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 403-418, January.
    15. Jose-Victor Rios-Rull & Per Krusell, 1999. "On the Size of U.S. Government: Political Economy in the Neoclassical Growth Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1156-1181, December.
    16. Pommerehne, Werner W., 1978. "Institutional approaches to public expenditure : Empirical evidence from Swiss municipalities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 255-280, April.
    17. Mueller,Dennis C., 2003. "Public Choice III," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521894753.
    18. Howard R. Bowen, 1943. "The Interpretation of Voting in the Allocation of Economic Resources," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 58(1), pages 27-48.
    19. Poterba, James M, 1996. "Budget Institutions and Fiscal Policy in the U.S. States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 395-400, May.
    20. Romer, Thomas & Rosenthal, Howard, 1982. "Median Voters or Budget Maximizers: Evidence from School Expenditure Referenda," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 20(4), pages 556-578, October.
    21. Randall Holcombe, 1989. "The median voter model in public choice theory," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 115-125, May.
    22. Lawrence Kenny, 1978. "The collective allocation of commodities in a democratic society: a generalization," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 117-120, September.
    23. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1994. "Is Inequality Harmful for Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 600-621, June.
    24. Niskanen, William A, 1975. "Bureaucrats and Politicians," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 617-643, December.
    25. Husted, Thomas A & Kenny, Lawrence W, 1997. "The Effect of the Expansion of the Voting Franchise on the Size of Government," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(1), pages 54-82, February.
    26. Werner W. Pommerehne & Friedrich Schneider*, 1978. "Fiscal Illusion, Political Institutions, And Local Public Spending," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 381-408, August.
    27. John G. Matsusaka, 1992. "Economics of Direct Legislation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 541-571.
    28. Munley, Vincent G, 1984. "Has the Median Voter Found a Ballot Box That He Can Control?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 22(3), pages 323-336, July.
    29. Meltzer, Allan H & Richard, Scott F, 1981. "A Rational Theory of the Size of Government," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 914-927, October.
    30. Scott Feld & Bernard Grofman & Nicholas Miller, 1988. "Centripetal forces in spatial voting: On the size of the Yolk," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 37-50, October.
    31. Thomas Romer & Howard Rosenthal, 1979. "Bureaucrats Versus Voters: On the Political Economy of Resource Allocation by Direct Democracy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(4), pages 563-587.
    32. John R. Lott & Jr. & Lawrence W. Kenny, 1999. "Did Women's Suffrage Change the Size and Scope of Government?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(6), pages 1163-1198, December.
    33. James M. Poterba, 1996. "Do Budget Rules Work?," NBER Working Papers 5550, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    34. Holcombe, Randall G, 1980. "An Empirical Test of the Median Voter Model," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 18(2), pages 260-274, April.
    35. Matsusaka, John G, 1995. "Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative: Evidence from the Last 30 Years," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 587-623, June.
    36. Rexford Santerre, 1986. "Representative versus direct democracy: A Tiebout test of relative performance," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 55-63, January.
    37. Bradbury, John Charles & Crain, W. Mark, 2001. "Legislative organization and government spending: cross-country evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 309-325, December.
    38. Randall Holcombe & Steven Caudill, 1985. "Tax shares and government spending in a median voter model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 197-205, January.
    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. Kai Hao Yang & Alexander K. Zentefis, 2023. "Extreme Points of First-Order Stochastic Dominance Intervals: Theory and Applications," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2355, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    2. Kai Hao Yang & Alexander K. Zentefis, 2022. "Gerrymandering and the Limits of Representative Democracy," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2328, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    3. Kai Hao Yang & Alexander K. Zentefis, 2023. "The Economics of Monotone Function Intervals," Papers 2302.03135, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2024.
    4. Thomas Gilligan & John Matsusaka, 2006. "Public choice principles of redistricting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 129(3), pages 381-398, December.

    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. Rhee, Se-Koo, 1996. "The impact of intergovernmental grants-in-aid on public school expenditure under the segregated school system," ISU General Staff Papers 1996010108000012396, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    2. Eric J. Brunner & Stephen L. Ross, 2007. "How Decisive Is the Decisive Voter?," Working papers 2007-28, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2008.
    3. Eric J. Brunner & Stephen L. Ross, 2009. "Is the Median Voter Decisive? Evidence of 'Ends Against the Middle' From Referenda Voting Patterns," Working papers 2009-02, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised May 2010.
    4. George Tridimas & Stanley L. Winer, 2004. "A Contribution to the Political Economy of Government Size: 'Demand', 'Supply' and 'Political Influence'," Carleton Economic Papers 04-04, Carleton University, Department of Economics.
    5. Randall Holcombe, 1989. "The median voter model in public choice theory," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 115-125, May.
    6. Lars P. Feld & Gebhard Kirchgassner, 1999. "Public Debt and Budgetary Procedures: Top Down or Bottom Up? Some Evidence from Swiss Municipalities," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance, pages 151-180, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Fabio Padovano, 2013. "Are we witnessing a paradigm shift in the analysis of political competition?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 631-651, September.
    8. Gebhard Kirchgassner, 2002. "The effects of fiscal institutions on public finance: a survey of the empirical evidence," Chapters, in: Stanley L. Winer & Hirofumi Shibata (ed.), Political Economy and Public Finance, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Feld, Lars P. & Kirchgassner, Gebhard, 2000. "Direct democracy, political culture, and the outcome of economic policy: a report on the Swiss experience," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 287-306, June.
    10. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    11. Mark Gradstein & Branko Milanovic, 2004. "Does Libertè = Egalité? A Survey of the Empirical Links between Democracy and Inequality with Some Evidence on the Transition Economies," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 515-537, September.
    12. Benoît Le Maux, 2009. "Governmental behavior in representative democracy: a synthesis of the theoretical literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 447-465, December.
    13. Lars P. Feld & Justina A.V. Fischer & Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2010. "The Effect Of Direct Democracy On Income Redistribution: Evidence For Switzerland," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(4), pages 817-840, October.
    14. Shelton, Cameron A., 2007. "The size and composition of government expenditure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2230-2260, December.
    15. Feld, Lars P & Kirchgassner, Gebhard, 2001. "Does Direct Democracy Reduce Public Debt? Evidence from Swiss Municipalities," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 109(3-4), pages 347-370, December.
    16. Patricia Funk & Christina Gathmann, 2011. "Does Direct Democracy Reduce the Size of Government? New Evidence from Historical Data, 1890–2000," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(557), pages 1252-1280, December.
    17. Shelton, Cameron A., 2008. "The aging population and the size of the welfare state: Is there a puzzle?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 647-651, April.
    18. Mark Gradstein & Branko Milanovic, 2000. "Does Liberté = Egalité? A Survey of the Empirical Evidence on the Links between Political Democracy and Income Inequality," CESifo Working Paper Series 261, CESifo.
    19. Matsusaka, John G, 2000. "Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative in the First Half of the Twentieth Century," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(2), pages 619-650, October.
    20. Steven Deller & David Chicoine, 1988. "Representative versus direct democracy a Tiebout test of relative performance: Comment," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 69-72, 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:kap:pubcho:v:125:y:2005:i:3:p:385-407. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.