Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-pwrkn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-17T22:55:54.505Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Endogeneity of the Initiative: A Comment on Marschall and Ruhil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

John G. Matsusaka
John G. Matsusaka*
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is widely believed that direct democracy, in the form of the initiative, brought about cuts in state taxes and spending over the last quarter century. This belief is based on firsthand observation, case studies, and more than a dozen statistical studies (Matsusaka 2004). Marschall and Ruhil (2005) focus on one of the central issues in this literature: Did the initiative cause this perceived reduction in taxes and spending, or was there some unmeasured factor that led to adoption of the initiative as well as spending and tax cuts?

Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , Winter 2005 , pp. 356 - 363
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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

Baqir, Reza. 2002. “Districting and Government Overspending.” Journal of Political Economy 110:1318–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradbury, John Charles, and Mark Crain, W.. 2001. “Legislative Organization and Government Spending: Cross Country Evidence.” Journal of Public Economics 82:309–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, James M., and Tullock, Gordon. 1962. The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crain, W. Mark. 1999. “Districts, Diversity, and Fiscal Biases: Evidence from the American States.” Journal of Law and Economics 42:675–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., Wright, Gerald C., and McIver, John P.. 1993. Statehouse Democracy: Public Opinion and Policy in the American States. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gerber, Elisabeth R., Lupia, Arthur, McCubbins, Mathew D., and Roderick Kiewiet, D.. 2001. Stealing the Initiative: How State Government Responds to Direct Democracy. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Thomas W., and Matsusaka, John G.. 1995. “Systematic Deviations from Constituent Interests: The Role of Legislative Structure and Political Parties in the States.” Economic Inquiry 33:383–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilligan, Thomas W., and Matsusaka, John G.. 2001. “Fiscal Policy, Legislature Size, and Political Parties: Evidence from State and Local Governments in the First Half of the Twentieth Century.” National Tax Journal 54:57–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Judge, George J., Griffiths, W.E., Hill, R. Carter, Lutkepuhl, Helmut, and Lee, Tsoung-Chao. 1985. The Theory and Practice of Economics. New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Marschall, Melissa J., and Ruhil, Anirudh V.S.. 2005. “Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative Reconsidered: Addressing Endogeneity.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 5:327–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matsusaka, John G. 1995. “Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative: Evidence from the Last 30 Years.” Journal of Political Economy 103:587–623.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matsusaka, John G. 2004. For the Many or the Few: The Initiative, Public Policy, and American Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merrifield, John. 2000. “State Government Expenditure Determinants and Tax Revenue Determinants Revisited.” Public Choice 102:25–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poterba, James M. 1995. “Capital Budgets, Borrowing Rules, and State Capital Spending.” Journal of Public Economics 56:165–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waters, M. Dane. 2003. Initiative and Referendum Almanac. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.Google Scholar
Weingast, Barry R., Shepsle, Kenneth A., and Johnsen, Christopher. 1981. “The Political Economy of Benefits and Costs: A Neoclassical Approach to Distributive Politics.” Journal of Political Economy 89:642–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar