Looking across borders: a test of spatial policy interdependence using local government efficiency ratings

Der Blick über die Grenze: Untersuchung von räumlichen Wechselbeziehungen in der Kommunalpolitik anhand von Effizienzbewertungen

Benny Geys

Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance from WZB Berlin Social Science Center

Abstract: Spatial patterns in (local) government taxation and spending decisions have received a lot of scholarly attention recently. Still, the focus on taxation or expenditure levels in previous studies is incomplete. In fact, (rational) individuals are likely to consider the level of spending on (or taxation for) public goods provision simultaneously with how much public goods they actually receive – thus assessing the ‘price/quantity’ of government policy (in relation to that of neighbouring jurisdictions) rather than concentrating on spending (or taxation) levels alone. Therefore, the present paper argues that incumbents may want their ‘price/quantity’ ratio to be close to that in neighbouring regions. Using Flemish local governments’ efficiency ratings for the year 2000 (which relate tax revenues to the quantity of locally provided public goods), we confirm the existence of such neighbourhood effects in local government policies.

Keywords: Government efficiency; Flemish municipalities; local government; spatial interdependence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D24 D60 H71 H72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (79)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/51157/1/512792895.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Looking across borders: A test of spatial policy interdependence using local government efficiency ratings (2006)
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:zbw:wzbmpg:spii200603

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance from WZB Berlin Social Science Center Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().