Regional analysis of property taxation, education finance reform, and property value growth

Mark Skidmore, Laura Reese and Sung Hoon Kang

Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2012, vol. 42, issue 1-2, 351-363

Abstract: In this article we examine the relationship between property tax rates and tax base growth in southeast Michigan using data for all 152 communities in the five counties surrounding Detroit over the 1983–2002 period. To address endogeneity, we exploit the adoption of Proposal A in 1994, which resulted in substantial exogenous and differential changes to property tax rates and school spending across all communities. This major state imposed intervention enables us to examine the tax rate–tax base relationship using appropriate instrumental variable techniques. We find that both tax rate and school spending changes have statistically significant effects on tax base growth. We also examine the effects of competitor community policies on own community tax base growth using a unique approach to define competitors. Specifically, competitor communities are determined by migration flows as opposed to the more traditional methods based on contiguity or population. We find significant regional competition effects; changes in tax rates and school spending relative to competitors are also important to tax base growth.

Keywords: Property tax; Education finance; Tax base growth; Regional tax competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H73 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016604621100130X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:regeco:v:42:y:2012:i:1:p:351-363

DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2011.10.008

Access Statistics for this article

Regional Science and Urban Economics is currently edited by D.P McMillen and Y. Zenou

More articles in Regional Science and Urban Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().