"Debrucing" the Link between Tax and Expenditure Limits and Special District Governments
ABSTRACT We provide a direct test of the extent to which the stringency of a Tax and Expenditure Limit (TEL) influences the creation of special district governments by examining one of the strictest TELs in U.S. history, the Colorado Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR). Through analysis of panel...
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Published in | Growth and change Vol. 43; no. 2; pp. 273 - 303 |
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Main Authors | , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Malden, USA
Blackwell Publishing Inc
01.06.2012
Blackwell Publishing Ltd |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | ABSTRACT
We provide a direct test of the extent to which the stringency of a Tax and Expenditure Limit (TEL) influences the creation of special district governments by examining one of the strictest TELs in U.S. history, the Colorado Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR). Through analysis of panel data from 1993 to 2004 of general purpose and special district governments, we test the relationship between TABOR and the creation of special districts. The novelty of our research involves the use of successful and failed attempts to override TABOR to measure variation in TEL restrictiveness at the county and municipal geography. Our results indicate that counties and municipalities unable to override TABOR's restrictions and therefore bound by the TEL have no greater use of special district governments than local jurisdictions experiencing similar demand for services but not bound by TABOR. These results are robust to failed override attempts specific to tax revenue as well as debt proceeds. Furthermore, results are unaffected by the use of multiyear lagged measures of override attempts and the inclusion of county debrucing initiatives that passed or failed by a small margin—i.e., less than 60 percent of votes. Contrary to anecdotal evidence, our results find no relationship between tax and expenditure limits and the formation of special districts. |
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Bibliography: | istex:A328F8B97CC293FB60769A0E230C333E61F5EDD9 ark:/67375/WNG-ZQCM5SXF-H ArticleID:GROW586 Deborah A. Carroll is an associate professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA. Her e‐mail address is The authors would like to thank Christine Martell for her insightful thoughts and answers to our questions related to this topic of research, Erika Stinson for her instrumental help with data collection for this project, two reviewers as well as Don Bruce and Jonathan Rork for review of and constructive comments offered on an earlier draft. Stephen B. Billings is an assistant professor in Economics at the University of North Carolina‐Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA. His e‐mail address is sbillin2@uncc.edu dcarroll@uga.edu ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 ObjectType-Article-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 |
ISSN: | 0017-4815 1468-2257 |
DOI: | 10.1111/j.1468-2257.2012.00586.x |