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U.S State Tax and Expenditure Limitations: A Comparative Political Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Michael J. New
Michael J. New*
Affiliation:
University of Alabama
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Abstract

Much of the academic literature that examines U.S. state tax and expenditure limitations (TELs) concludes that TELs are an ineffective mechanism for limiting state spending. However, one shortcoming common to all of these studies is their failure to take into account the incentives of the political actors who enact these TELs. I hypothesize that because of differences in incentives, TELs enacted by citizen initiatives will be more stringent and more effective than TELs passed by state legislatures. An examination of the provisions of the various TELs and a regression analysis support this hypothesis.

Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , Spring 2010 , pp. 25 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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