Full Citation

Title: State Fiscal Policy and Local Residential Sorting: Are Tiebout Voters Hobbled?

Citation Type: Conference Paper

Publication Year: 2004

ISBN:

ISSN:

DOI:

NSFID:

PMCID:

PMID:

Abstract: While the Tiebout hypothesis has come under increasing empirical fire, studies have not convincingly ascertained whether weak Tiebout sorting is truly evidence against the hypothesis or simply evidence that the prevalence of centralized state policies removes the conditions necessary for fiscal sorting. We explore the extent to which state fiscal policy pertaining to the school finance system affects the incentive or ability to sort on local fiscal characteristics. Using panel data on older households from the Health and Retirement Study, we find smaller adjustments of the local fiscal bundle by within-state empty-nest movers in the presence of school finance equalization policies. In addition, we use household data from the 1970-2000 decennial census to analyze differences in within-state and cross-state mobility rates and location choice under different school finance regimes. We find evidence of decreased within-state mobility at critical points in the Tiebout lifecycle when school finance equalization is present. We also find evidence that older households may escape centralization by moving across state lines.

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Farnham, Martin; Sevak, Purvi

Conference Name: TAPES Conference on Fiscal Federalism

Publisher Location: Munich, Germany

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Other

Countries: