Book Description

This dissertation consists of four essays that introduce tax and expenditure limitations (TELs), examine their effectiveness, identify potential unintended impacts of the TELs, and discuss future beneficial research. TELs impose financial restrictions onto municipalities, however exceptions in these laws allow municipalities to exceed stated thresholds. This creates uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of these laws. This dissertation examines TEL efficacy, in addition to providing insights regarding unintended consequences of these laws. I utilize methodologies which account for the endogenous relationship between TEL enactment and fiscal policy. The first essay provides background regarding the types of tax and expenditure limitations, their intended effects, and how certain technical aspects of their enactment may allow for circumvention of the stated limits. In the second essay, I examine how municipal finances are affected by TELs. The main goals of TELs are to reduce the property tax burden of residents and reduce the size of government. I find evidence that property tax burden is reduced following implementation of TELs. However, I do not find strong evidence that expenditures are significantly reduced. Additionally, I do not find consistent evidence of reductions in expenditure growth. Essay three examines potential unintended consequences of TELs. I find there are potential consequences of these TELs beyond the two main goals of reduced property tax burden and government size reduction. One consequence is a reduced proportion of spending on productive services. In addition, I find evidence that municipalities may anticipate the enactment of the laws and react by increasing the proportion of service expenditures just before the law goes into effect. The negative implication of this anticipation is that accelerated expenditures, if sub optimally funded by debt, could be costly for the municipality in the long term. The final essay discusses future research that could provide insights regarding methods to help ensure that municipalities effectively implement financial policies under tax and expenditure limits. This essay posits that GAAP reporting standards and high quality audits may aid in limiting TEL limit circumvention. An exploratory examination of the association of GAAP standards and municipal financial decisions is performed.