Policy Design and the Politics of City Revenue: Evidence from California Municipal Ballot Measures. Issue 5 (September 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Martin, Isaac William; Lopez, Jane Lilly; Olsen, Lauren
• Is Part Of: Urban affairs review. Volume 55:Issue 5(2019)
• Page Start: 1312
• Page End: 1338
• Publication Date: 2019-09
• Subjects: taxation -- direct democracy -- city politics; City planning -- Periodicals; Aménagement urbain; Développement urbain; Planification urbaine; Politique urbaine; Recherche; Sociologie urbaine; Urbanisme; Ville; États-Unis; Périodique électronique (Descripteur de forme); Ressource Internet (Descripteur de forme); 307.76
• DOI: 10.1177/1078087417752474
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1078-0874

Abstract

Residents of the United States rely on municipal governments to deliver important public goods but are often reluctant to pay for those goods. Can tax policy design affect voters' propensity to say yes to local taxes? We answer this question by analyzing a new database of 929 tax increases of heterogeneous design that were proposed to California voters from 1996 to 2010. We find that voters' willingness to raise a municipal tax varies with the choice of tax base, as well as with such policy design features as its timing and its symbolic links to particular purposes. The political limits on city revenue may vary substantially depending on how a tax is designed, and theories that assume otherwise—including several classic models of urban politics—may exaggerate the degree to which municipal revenues are constrained.