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“Causes of Sprawl”: A (Further) Public Finance Extension

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  • McMillan, Melville L.

    (University of Alberta, Department of Economics)

Abstract

There are good reasons to expect that attributes of local public finance may impact urban land use and, specifically, sprawl. A detailed and novel investigation of U.S. metropolitan areas (Burchfield et al., 2006) provides substantial insights into the causes of sprawl, but it overlooks the main characteristics of local public finance (taxes and user charges). Using a subset of the data matched to city public finance data, a parallel analysis yielded evidence that greater reliance on local property taxes reduces sprawl and suggested that user charges (primarily for water, sewerage and solid waste services) could have a similar effect (McMillan, 2016). Expansion of the local public finance data set allowed extension of the data analyzed from 83 to 109 observations. The subsequent analysis was expected to enable a refinement of the estimates made in the 2016 paper. However, analysis of the extended data set as reported in this paper indicates more nuanced results. In particular, the impacts of property taxes on sprawl depend upon the population of the metropolitan area.

Suggested Citation

  • McMillan, Melville L., 2018. "“Causes of Sprawl”: A (Further) Public Finance Extension," Working Papers 2018-4, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:albaec:2018_004
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    File URL: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~econwps/2018/wp2018-04.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Melville L. McMillan, 2016. "Municipal Revenue Generation and Sprawl: Implications for the Calgary and Edmonton Metropolitan Regions Derived from an Extension of "Causes of Sprawl"," SPP Technical Papers, The School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, vol. 9(40), December.
    2. Philip Bazel & Jack Mintz, 2014. "The Free Ride is Over: Why Cities, and Citizens, Must Start Paying for Much-Needed Infrastructure," SPP Research Papers, The School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, vol. 7(14), May.
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    4. Melville McMillan & Bev Dahlby, 2014. "Do Local Governments Need Alternative Sources of Tax Revenue? An Assessment of the Options for Alberta Cities," SPP Research Papers, The School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, vol. 7(26), September.
    5. Marcy Burchfield & Henry G. Overman & Diego Puga & Matthew A. Turner, 2006. "Causes of Sprawl: A Portrait from Space," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 587-633.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    urban sprawl; local taxes; property taxes;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H71 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • R51 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Finance in Urban and Rural Economies
    • R52 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Land Use and Other Regulations

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