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Working Paper
Wagner's hypothesis: a local perspective
Wagner's hypothesis of an expanding public sector as an economy develops is tested using pooled time-series cross-sectional data for U.S. states from 1964 to 1986. Comparing government size among fiscal jurisdictions within a single nation reduces the problems of data comparability and of controlling for cultural and institutional differences that plague the more common international tests of this theory. Our results are inconsistent with Wagner's hypothesis, yielding a negative relationship between public-sector size and output. However, some empirical support is found in the protective ...
Working Paper
Structure, conduct, and performance in the local public sector
An examination of the relationship between the number of local governments within local labor markets and their expenditures, finding empirical support in both suburbs and central cities for the connection between the structure of the local public service market and its performance.
Journal Article
Can competition among local governments constrain government spending?
An examination of the relationship between the number of local governmental units and the share of personal income going to local government expenditures, considering competition among both general-purpose and single-purpose government units.