Can Citizens Set City Policy? Evidence from a Decentralized Welfare State

Municipal governments supposedly empower citizens, giving them the ability to shape the political organization of their local community. In spite of this, we know little about whether municipal governments are in fact responsive to the policy views of municipal electorates. In this study, we look at whether the policy implemented by local politicians actually respond to changes in the ideological mood of the electorate. In particular, we compile a unique and comprehensive data set of local fiscal policy in Denmark, which we use to construct municipal-level estimates of fiscal policy conservatism. These detailed policy data are then linked to an indicator of local ideological sentiment. Based on these data, we find strong evidence for dynamic responsiveness: When local preferences change, local public policy responds.

Lame Ducks and Local Fiscal Policy: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Portugal

I use the introduction of mayoral term limits in Portugal to identify how an exogenous variation in eligibility for office affects policy decisions. Relying on a quasi-experimental difference-in-differences approach, I find that term-limited incumbents pursue more conservative fiscal policies than those who are eligible for re-election. Heterogeneous effects show that the treatment effects primarily reflect the behaviour of right-leaning, term-limited incumbents. Results are in line with a model in which right-leaning officeholders try to maintain a good reputation by pleasing an electorate prone to redistribution while they are eligible, but adopt policies closer to their true preferences when term-limited.

EFFECTIVENESS OF REGIONAL FISCAL POLICY FOR INFLATION CONTROL IN SERANG CITY

ABSTRAK Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis efektivitas kebijakan fiskal daerah yang ditinjau berdasarkan belanja pegawai, belanja barang, dan penerimaan pajak daerah dalam pengendalian inflasi di Kota Serang. Penelitian ini menggunakan analisis regresi linier berganda. Hasil estimasi menunjukkan bahwa belanja pegawai dan belanja barang secara signifikan berpengaruh postif terhadap inflasi sedangkan penerimaan pajak daerah secara signifikan berpengaruh negatif terhadap inflasi. Dengan demikian, pengendalian inflasi di Kota Serang dapat dilakukan dengan pengendalian terhadap pengeluaran pemerintah daerah khususnya belanja pegawai dan belanja barang serta penerimaan pajak daerah. Kata kunci: belanja barang, belanja pegawai, inflasi, kebijakan fiskal daerah, penerimaan pajak daerah ABSTRACT This study aims to analyze the effectiveness of regional fiscal policy based on personnel expenditure, goods expenditure, and local taxes revenue to control inflation in Serang City. This study uses multiple regression analysis. The result of estimation shows that personnel expenditure and goods expenditure significantly give positive influence to inflation while local taxes revenue significantly give negative influence to inflation. So, The Control of Inflation in Serang City can be done by controlling of local government expenditure especially personnel expenditure and goods expenditure and local government revenue. Keyword: goods expenditure, inflation, local fiscal policy, local taxes revenue, personnel expenditure

What Factors Drive Municipal Fiscal Policy Adoption?: An Empirical Investigation of Major Cities in the United States

Local policy makers operate within a confined decision-making environment and their policy-making capacities are limited by intergovernmental constraints, political culture, service demand, and economic and fiscal condition. This study investigates the effects of these factors on certain types of local fiscal policy adoption in the United States. Based on data from hundred major American cities, the result shows that a combination of state aid, state-imposed local tax and expenditure limits, fiscal decentralization, and tax authority has varied effects on the adoption of fiscal policies such as property tax increases, other tax increases, fees and user charge increases, and personnel cuts.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? An Integrated Model of Urban Policy Interdependence

This article explores local fiscal policy interdependence by proposing and testing a particular spatial modeling method to examine how different expenditure domains interact with neighboring jurisdictions. The analysis examines the extent of spatial interdependence by policy domain and explores the most robust way of determining neighbors for spatial analysis. It concludes that space matters in ways that need to be taken into account in the development of models explaining local spending and that different functional domains of expenditures have different scales of spatial effects. The extent of spatial interdependence varies by spending domain based on the amount of local government discretion and control over the policy area.