IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/pbudge/v38y2018i3p32-57.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Use of Special Assessments by Municipal Governments in the Chicago Metropolitan Area: Is Leviathan Tamed?

Author

Listed:
  • Rebecca Hendrick
  • Shu Wang

Abstract

This study investigates whether the use of special assessments (SAs) by municipalities in the Chicago metropolitan area demonstrates Leviathan behavior. The first part of the study estimates a model of the effect of SA use on capital and operational spending in these governments from 1998 to 2012. The results show that governments do not use SAs to increase spending beyond what taxpayers desire as represented by the median voter hypothesis. The second part of the analysis conducts interviews and collects other qualitative data to inform the model and help explain the low use of SAs in the region. This investigation finds that governments are risk averse in using SAs, and many are strongly guided by precedent and the public's perception of SAs, which are not consistent with Leviathan behavior. Also, contrary to Leviathan assumptions, the data indicate that government officials often do not have enough knowledge of these tools or experience with them to use them in a Leviathan manner.

Suggested Citation

  • Rebecca Hendrick & Shu Wang, 2018. "Use of Special Assessments by Municipal Governments in the Chicago Metropolitan Area: Is Leviathan Tamed?," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 32-57, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:pbudge:v:38:y:2018:i:3:p:32-57
    DOI: 10.1111/pbaf.12190
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/pbaf.12190
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/pbaf.12190?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ruth Winecoff & Michelle Graff, 2020. "Innovation in Financing Energy‐Efficient and Renewable Energy Upgrades: An Evaluation of Property Assessed Clean Energy for California Residences," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 101(7), pages 2555-2573, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:pbudge:v:38:y:2018:i:3:p:32-57. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0275-1100 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.