Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:24:13.158Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Residential Mobility in London: A Micro-Level Test of the Behavioural Assumptions of the Tiebout Model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Peter John ,
Keith Dowding  and
Stephen Biggs
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Tiebout model, which theorizes that residential choice can regulate the supply of local collective goods, has generated much criticism, but few empirical tests of its behavioural assumptions. The article presents the findings of the first British micro-level test of the effect of local taxes and services on geographical mobility, a postal survey of households' moving decisions in four London boroughs during the years of the poll tax. Taxes and services are found to be important factors in the moving decision, corroborating the behavioural assumptions of the model. Respondents acted Tiebout-rationally as those moving into low tax/good service quality boroughs are more likely to cite low taxes and good services as a moving factor than those doing the reverse. The policy implications, however, remain contingent on political orientation.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , July 1995 , pp. 379 - 397
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Tiebout, C. M., ‘A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures’, Journal of Political Economy, 64 (1956) 416–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘An Economic Theory of Fiscal Decentralization’, in NBER, Public Finances: Needs, Sources and Utilization (Princeton, NJ: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1961)Google Scholar. Tiebout writes of ‘consumer-voters’ but we use the more standard identification of movers as ‘households’.

2 Samuelson, Paul A., ‘The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure’, Review of Economics and Statistics, 36 (1954), 387–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Diagrammatic Exposition of a Theory of Public Expenditure’, Review of Economics and Statistics, 38 (1955), 350–6.Google Scholar

3 Tiebout, ‘Pure Theory’, p. 422.Google Scholar

4 Tiebout, ‘Pure Theory’, p. 420.Google Scholar

5 Buchanan, J. M. and Goetz, C. J., ‘Efficiency Limits on Fiscal Mobility: An Assessment of the Tiebout Model’, Journal of Public Economics, 1 (1972), 25–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Ridley, Nicholas, ‘Debate on Local Government Finance Bill’, 18 04 1988, Hansard, vol. 131, col. 584–92.Google Scholar

7 For example Miller, G., Cities by Contract (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981).Google Scholar

8 See Dowding, Keith, John, Peter and Biggs, Stephen, ‘Tiebout: A Survey of the Empirical Literature’, Urban Studies, 31 (1994), 767–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Dowding, , John, and Biggs, , ‘Tiebout: A Survey’Google Scholar. The five headings are: homogeneity or sorting interpretations, city size arguments, capitalization studies, fiscal migration and micro-level tests.

10 Cebula, R. J., ‘Interstate Migration and the Tiebout Hypothesis: An Analysis According to Race, Sex and Age’, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 69 (1974), 876–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cebula, R. J. and Kohn, R. M., ‘Public Policies and Migration Patterns in the United States – Reply and Reformulation’, Public Finance, 34 (1979), 306–8Google Scholar; Cebula, R. J., Kohn, R. M. and Gallaway, L. E., ‘Determinants of Net Migration to SMSAs 1960–1970’, Mississippi Valley Journal of Business and Economics, 9 (1973), 59–64Google Scholar; Cebula, R. J., Kohn, R. M. and Vedder, R. K., ‘Some Determinants of the Interstate Migration of Blacks’, Western Economic Journal, 11 (1973), 500–5Google Scholar; Zieglar, J. A., ‘Interstate Black Migration: Comment and Further Evidence’, Economic Inquiry, 14 (1976), 449–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sommers, P. M. and Suits, D. B., ‘Analysis of Net Interstate Migration’, Southern Economic Journal, 40 (1973), 193–201CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blank, R., ‘The Effect of Welfare and Wage Levels on the Location Decisions of Female-Headed Households’, Journal of Urban Economics, 24 (1988), 186–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cushing, B. J., ‘The Effect of the Social Welfare System on Metropolitan Migration in the US by Income Group, Gender and Family Structure’, Urban Studies, 16 (1993), 325–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gramlich, E. M. and Laren, D., ‘Migration and Income Redistribution Responsibilities’, Journal of Human Resources, 19(1984). 489–511CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Southwick, L., ‘Public Welfare Programmes and Recipient Migration’, Growth and Change, 12 (1981), 22–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See Clark, T. N. and Fergusen, L. C., City Money: Political Processes, Fiscal Strain and Retrenchment (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), chap. 8Google Scholar; and Dowding, , John, and Biggs, , ‘Tiebout: A Survey’Google Scholar for reviews of this literature. Given the UK's near-universal, centrally determined welfare system, the large inter-state welfare differentials utilized by the US studies cannot be directly compared with British evidence.

11 Foster, C D., Jackman, R. A. and Perlman, M., Local Government in a Unitary State (London: Allen & Unwin, 1980)Google Scholar; Sharpe, L. J. and Newton, K., Does Politics Matter? The Determinants of Public Policy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).Google Scholar

12 Sharpe, and Newton, , Does Politics Matter?Google Scholar

13 For example of such criticism, see Keating, M., Comparative Urban Politics (London: Edward Elgar, 1991), p. 110.Google Scholar

14 Tiebout, , ‘Pure Theory’, p. 419.Google Scholar

15 Rose-Ackerman, S., ‘Beyond Tiebout: Modelling the Political Economy of Local Government’, in Zodrow, G. R., ed., Local Provision of Public Services: The Tiebout Model After Twenty-Five Years (New York: Academic Press, 1983).Google Scholar

16 Equilibrium models are not easily empirically tested, though together with auxiliary hypotheses testable implications may be drawn from them. A good discussion of the testability problem of optimal equilibrium solutions and how they are overcome in biology appears in Sober, Elliot, The Philosophy of Biology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), chaps 3–5.Google Scholar

17 Teske, Paul, Schneider, Mark, Mintrom, Michael and Best, Samuel, ‘Establishing the Micro Foundations of a Macro Theory: Information, Movers, and the Competitive Market for Public Goods’, American Political Science Review, 87 (1993), 702–13, p. 702.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Mueller, Dennis C., Public Choice II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 193.Google Scholar

19 Teske, et al. , ‘Establishing the Micro-Level Foundations’, pp. 709–10.Google Scholar

20 Tiebout, , ‘A Pure Theory’, p. 423.Google Scholar

21 Tiebout, C. M., ‘Location Theory, Empirical Evidence, and Economic Evolution’, Regional Science Association: Papers and Proceedings, 3 (1957), 74–86.Google Scholar

22 The questions were adapted from the pilot survey reported in Dowding, Keith, John, Peter and Cowley, Philip, ‘Population Movements in Response to Local Taxes and Services: The Results of a Pilot Study’ (Department of Government Working Paper No. 19, Brunel University)Google Scholar. The pilot survey investigated reasons for moving drawn from previous mobility literature and pre-pilot trials of the questionnaire.

23 Respondents were given a list of push and pull factors and asked to indicate how important they thought they were in the household's moving decision. There was space for respondents to add further factors. See Appendix for details about sampling and methods.

24 See, for example, Popper, Karl, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 6th edn, rev'd (London: Hutchinson, 1972), pp. 119–21Google Scholar; and Conjectures and Refutations, 5th edn, rev'd (London: Routledge, 1989), pp. 385–91.Google Scholar

25 Aronson, J. R. and Schwartz, E., ‘Financing Public Goods and the Distribution of Population in a System of Local Governments’, National Tax Journal, 26 (1973), 137–59Google Scholar; Aronson, J. R. ‘Financing Public Goods and the Distribution of Population in Metropolitan Areas: An Analysis of Fiscal Migration in the US and England’, in Culyer, A., ed., Economic Policy and Social Goals (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1974)Google Scholar; Cuthbertson, K., Foreman-Peck, J. and Griapos, P., ‘The Effects of Local Authority Fiscal Decisions on Population Levels in Urban Areas’, Regional Studies, 16 (1982), 165–71CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Davies, H., ‘Fiscal Migration and the London Boroughs’, Urban Studies, 19 (1982), 143–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Twomey, J., ‘Local Authority Fiscal Stance and the Pattern of Residential Migration in the North West of England’, Applied Economics, 19 (1987), 1391–401.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

26 Cuthbertson, , Foreman-Peck, and Griapos, , ‘The Effects of Local Authority Fiscal Decisions’Google Scholar; Davies, , ‘Fiscal Migration’.Google Scholar

27 Game, C., ‘Budget Making by Opinion Poll – Must Services Always Suffer?’, Local Government Studies, 8 (1982), 11–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 Camden's poll taxes were £500, £300 and £374; Lambeth's were £497, £402 and £425; and Westminster's were £195, £36 and £36 (1990/1, 1991/2 and 1992/3 respectively). Wandsworth's poll taxes were set at £ 149 in 1990/91 and at zero in the two following financial years. Service comparisons are difficult, but analysis by Cipfa (Chartered Institute of Public Finance Accountants), ‘Local Government Comparative Statistics’, for the relevant years, and the responses to service satisfaction from our own questionnaire is suggestive of this relationship.

29 Butler, E. W., Chapin, F. Stuart Jr, Hemmens, G. C., Kaiser, Edward J., Stegman, Michael A. and Weiss, Shirley F., Moving Behavior and Residential Choice – A National Survey, National Cooperative Highway Research Program Report No. 81 (Washington, DC: Highway Research Board, National Academy of Sciences, 1969)Google Scholar; Speare, A., Goldstein, S. and Frey, W. H., Residential Mobility, Migration, and Metropolitan Change (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1975)Google Scholar; Rossi, P., Why Families Move: A Study in the Social Psychology of Urban Residential Mobility, 2nd edn (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1980)Google Scholar; Stilwell, J. and Congdon, P., eds, Migration Models: Macro and Micro Approaches (London: Belhaven Press, 1991).Google Scholar

30 Hirschman, Albert, Shifting Involvements: Private Interest and Public Action (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1982).Google Scholar

31 Lansing, J. B. and Mueller, E., Residential Location and Urban Mobility (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Institute for Social Research, 1964)Google Scholar; Butler, et al. , Moving Behavior and Residential ChoiceGoogle Scholar; Rossi, , Why Families Move.Google Scholar

32 Brown, Lawrence A. and Moore, Eric G., ‘The Intra-Urban Migration Process: A Perspective’, Geografiska Annaler series B, 52 (1970), 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 Rossi, , Why Families Move.Google Scholar

34 Teske, et al. , p. 703.Google Scholar

35 Percy, Stephen L., ‘Revisiting Tiebout: Moving Rationales, Exiting Behavior and Governmental Responses to Metropolitan Mobility’ (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, 1993).Google Scholar

36 Lowery, D. and Lyons, W. E., ‘Citizen Response to Dissatisfaction in Urban Communities – A Partial Test of a General Model’, Journal of Politics, 51 (1989), 841–68Google Scholar; Lyons, W. E., Lowery, D. and DeHoog, R. H., The Politics of Dissatisfaction: Citizens, Services and Urban Institutions (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1992)Google Scholar; Sharp, Elaine B., ‘Exit, Voice, and Loyalty in the Context of Local Government Problems’, Western Political Quarterly, 37 (1984), 67–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sharp, Elaine B., Citizen Demand-Making in the Urban Context (Birmingham: University of Alabama Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Percy, S. L. and Hawkins, B. W., ‘Further Tests of Individual-Level Propositions from the Tiebout Model’, Journal of Politics, 54 (1992), 1149–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 Teske, et al. , ‘Establishing the Micro Foundations’, study push factorsGoogle Scholar; Percy, , ‘Revisiting Tiebout’, measures for both push and pull factors.Google Scholar

38 Where not stated associations are significant at p < 0.01; because of rounding not all column percentages add to 100.

39 Herting, J. R. and Guest, A. M., ‘Components of Satisfaction with Local Areas in the Metropolis’, Sociological Quarterly, 26 (1975), 99–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40 Dowding, , John, and Biggs, , ‘Tiebout: A Survey’.Google Scholar

41 Rossi, , Why Families MoveGoogle Scholar; Speare, , Goldstein, and Frey, , Residential Mobility.Google Scholar

42 The factor analysis of the push factors did not yield generalizable results.

43 Hirschman, Albert O.Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; Lowery, and Lyons, , ‘Citizen Response to Dissatisfaction’Google Scholar; Lyons, , Lowery, and DeHoog, , Politics of DissatisfactionGoogle Scholar; Sharp, , ‘Exit, Voice, and Loyalty in Context of Local Government’ and Citizen Demand-Making.Google Scholar

44 Significant at p < 0.01.

45 Results from other factors such as class and tenure are given in Dowding, Keith, John, Peter and Biggs, Stephen, ‘Population Movements in Response to Taxes and Services: Results from Four London Boroughs’, LSE Public Policy Paper No. 8 (London: London School of Economics, 1994).Google Scholar

46 Lowery, and Lyons, , ‘Citizen Response to Dissatisfaction’Google Scholar; Lyons, , Lowery, and DeHoog, , Politics of DissatisfactionGoogle Scholar; Sharp, , ‘Exit, Voice, and Loyalty in Context of Local Government’ and Citizen Demand-Making.Google Scholar

47 This picture is complicated by the fact that anecdotal evidence suggests that some services – such as refuse collection and education – can vary enormously across boroughs. Our sample was not large enough to attempt to test for this in terms of respondents' satisfaction answers.

48 General Household Survey: Introductory Report (London: HMSO, 1973), p. 150Google Scholar. Though recent household surveys do not break down the figures by region, the current national figure of 9 per cent, General Household Survey (London: HMSO, 1994), p. 136Google Scholar, is slightly higher than the 8 per cent national figure in the 1973 report and fulfils the market analogue.

49 For example, Midwinter, A. and Monaghan, C., From Rates to Poll Tax (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993) pp. 32–5Google Scholar. See, further, Dowding, Keith, ‘Public Choice and Local Governance’ in Stoker, Gerry and King, Desmond S., eds, Rethinking Normative Theories of Local Government and Democracy (London: Macmillan, 1995).Google Scholar

50 Though without much success; see Chandler, Jim, ‘Public Choice and Local Government Reform: Contrasts Between Britain and the United States’, in Dunleavy, Patrick and Stanyer, Jeffrey, eds, Contemporary Political Studies 1994, vol. 2 (Belfast: The Political Studies Association of the UK, 1994), 686–99Google Scholar, and Dowding, , ‘Public Choice and Local Governance’.Google Scholar

51 Dye, Thomas, American Federalism: Competition Amongst Governments (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1990).Google Scholar

52 Dowding, Keith, ‘Choice: Its Increase and its Value’, British Journal of Political Science, 22 (1992), 301–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 The covering letter sent out with the questionnaire clearly stated that if the questionnaire had been addressed to someone who had not taken part in the decision to move then it should be passed on to someone who had.

54 Dowding, , John, and Biggs, , ‘Population Movements in Response’, pp. 16–17.Google Scholar