IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pubfin/v20y1992i4p557-571.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of Federal Policies On Local Public Infrastructure Investment

Author

Listed:
  • Randall W. Eberts

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland)

  • William F. Fox

    (University of Tennessee)

Abstract

The linkage between federal policy and municipal investment decisions is empirically estimated. The findings of this article indicate that federal policies should be designed with recognition of the potential effects on local investment decisions. Deductibility of state and local taxes is found to have a strong effect on demand for investment. Intergovernmental aid appears to have a small positive influence on investment demand. Investment demand is estimated to have grown after passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA86). Because TRA86 eliminated sales tax deductibility, this suggests that sales taxes are not used at the margin to finance investments. Factors not related to federal tax policy, such as mandates, must explain the subsequent investment growth. Evidence is found that federal policies can increase investment by influencing municipal willingness to issue debt, as measured by the percentage of resources raised through debt. However, the effect disappears when the debt share is simultaneously estimated with investment demand

Suggested Citation

  • Randall W. Eberts & William F. Fox, 1992. "The Effect of Federal Policies On Local Public Infrastructure Investment," Public Finance Review, , vol. 20(4), pages 557-571, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:20:y:1992:i:4:p:557-571
    DOI: 10.1177/109114219202000411
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/109114219202000411
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/109114219202000411?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bergstrom, Theodore C & Goodman, Robert P, 1973. "Private Demands for Public Goods," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 280-296, June.
    2. Alicia H. Munnell, 1991. "Is there a shortfall in public capital investment? An overview," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue May, pages 23-35.
    3. Borcherding, Thomas E & Deacon, Robert T, 1972. "The Demand for the Services of Non-Federal Governments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(5), pages 891-901, December.
    4. Metcalf, G.E., 1991. "The Role Of Federal Taxation In The Supply Of Municipal Bonds: Evidence From Municipal Governments," Papers 72, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - John M. Olin Program.
    5. Roger H. Gordon & Joel B. Slemrod, 1986. "An Empirical Examination of Municipal Financial Policy," NBER Chapters, in: Studies in State and Local Public Finance, pages 53-82, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Myungsoon Hur, 2001. "The Impact of Debt Financing on the Level of Capital Spending," International Review of Public Administration, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(2), pages 91-101, December.
    2. James Alm & Trey Dronyk‐Trosper, 2021. "What drives road infrastructure spending?," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(4), pages 20-49, December.
    3. Ronald C. Fisher & Robert W. Wassmer, 2015. "An Analysis of State–Local Government Capital Expenditure During the 2000s[We present]," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 3-28, March.
    4. Robert A. Greer & Dwight V. Denison, 2016. "Determinants of Debt Concentration at the State Level," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 111-130, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Metcalf, Gilbert E., 1993. "Federal taxation and the supply of state debt," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 269-285, July.
    2. Jeffrey Zax, 1988. "The Effects of Jurisdiction Types and Numbers on Local Public Finance," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Federalism: Quantitative Studies, pages 79-106, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. James Alm & Trey Dronyk‐Trosper, 2021. "What drives road infrastructure spending?," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(4), pages 20-49, December.
    4. Marie-Estelle Binet, 2013. "The Linear Expenditure System and the Demand for Municipal Public Services: The Median Voter Specification Revisited," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(9), pages 1689-1703, July.
    5. Tidiane Ly, 2018. "Sub-metropolitan tax competition with household and capital mobility," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(5), pages 1129-1169, October.
    6. Douglas C. Bice & William H. Hoyt, 1997. "The Impact of Mandates and Tax Limits on Voluntary Contributions to Local Public Services: An Application to Fire Protection Services," Public Economics 9704002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Perry Shapiro & Jon Sonstelie, 1982. "Representative voter or bureaucratic manipulation: An examination of public finances in California before and after Proposition 13," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 113-142, January.
    8. Brunner, Eric & Sonstelie, Jon, 2003. "School finance reform and voluntary fiscal federalism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 2157-2185, September.
    9. Wildasin, David E. & Wilson, John Douglas, 1996. "Imperfect mobility and local government behaviour in an overlapping-generations model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 177-198, May.
    10. Randall Holcombe, 2005. "Government growth in the twenty-first century," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 95-114, July.
    11. D.P. Doessel & Abbas Valadkhani, 2002. "Public Finance and The Size of Government: A Literature Review and Econometric Results for Fiji," School of Economics and Finance Discussion Papers and Working Papers Series 108, School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology.
    12. Shawna Grosskopf & Kathy Hayes, 1983. "Do Local Governments Maximize Anything?," Public Finance Review, , vol. 11(2), pages 202-216, April.
    13. Thomas Luke Spreen & Ed Gerrish, 2022. "Taxes and tax‐exempt bonds: A literature review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 767-808, September.
    14. Stina Hökby & Tore Söderqvist, 2003. "Elasticities of Demand and Willingness to Pay for Environmental Services in Sweden," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 26(3), pages 361-383, November.
    15. Rongen, Gunnar, 1995. "Efficiency in the provision of local public goods in Norway," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 253-264, June.
    16. Benoît Le Maux, 2009. "Governmental behavior in representative democracy: a synthesis of the theoretical literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 447-465, December.
    17. Schläpfer, Felix & Baur, Ivo, 2017. "Does CAP spending reflect taxpayer preferences? An analysis of expenditures for public goods and income redistribution in relation to preference indicators," 2017 International Congress, August 28-September 1, 2017, Parma, Italy 261105, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    18. Jeffrey Zax, 1989. "Initiatives and government expenditures," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 63(3), pages 267-277, December.
    19. Witterblad, Mikael, 2008. "Essays on Redistribution and Local Public Expenditures," Umeå Economic Studies 731, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    20. David Sjoquist, 1981. "A median voter analysis of variations in the use of property taxes among local governments," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 273-285, January.

    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:sae:pubfin:v:20:y:1992:i:4:p:557-571. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.