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Oates Leviathan
Oates Leviathan
Wallace E. Oates
The American Economic Review, Vol. 75, No. 4. (Sep., 1985), pp. 748-757.
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Searching for Leviathan: An Empirical Study
Total government intrusion into the stand on their heads many of the basic theo-
economy should be smaller, ceteris rems in public finance for an efficient and
puribus, the greater the extent to which equitable tax system. If, in fact, the Leviathan
taxes and expenditures are decentral- view is an inaccurate depiction of the func-
ized. . . . tioning of the public sector, the introduction
[Brennan and Buchanun, 1980, p. 1851
of their policy proposals is likely to make a
In several papers and a recent book, sorry mess of the fiscal system.
Geoffrey Brennan and James Buchanan The Leviathan model does, however, have
(1977, 1978, 1980) have put forth a striking some straightforward implications for ob-
and controversial view of the vublic sector. servable fiscal behavior. It is the purpose of
Drawing by analogy on the conventional the- this paper to examine one of these testable
ory of monopoly in the private sector, they implications. Brennan and Buchanan stress
envision a monolithic government that sys- that fiscal decentralization is itself a power-
tematically seeks to exploit its citizenry ful constraint on Leviathan: competition
through the maximization of the tax reve- among governments in the context of the
nues that it extracts from the economy. From "interjurisdictional mobility of persons in
this perspective, they develop a fiscal con- pursuit of 'fiscal gains' can offer partial or
stitution-whose central is to con- possibly complete substitutes for explicit fis-
strain "Leviathan" by limiting in various cal constraints on the taxing power" (1980,
ways its access to tax and other fiscal instru- p. 184). Such competition among govern-
ments. ments in a federal system that places heavy
While the Leviathan hv~othesishas been reliance on "local" fiscal decisions will greatly
the source of lively debate'and a wide range limit the capacity of Leviathan to channel
of policy proposals, it has not been the sub- resources into the public sector. In short, as
ject of much systematic empirical work or indicated by the epigraph to this paper, the
testing.' This is a matter of some importance Leviathan model implies that, other things
since the policy implications of the Leviathan equal, the size of the public sector should
view are disturbing, to put it mildly. In par- vary inversely with the extent of fiscal de-
ticular, Brennan and Buchanan virtually centralization.*
does not support the Brennan-Buchanan those states with a more decentralized fiscal
model of Leviathan; in none of the statistical structure should have a smaller state-local
tests did the results suggest that fiscal de- sector.
centralization was significantly associated The testing procedure will be to take as
with a relatively small public sector. the null hypothesis the proposition that
In view of the renewed interest in this government size and the extent of decentral-
issue, I turn in this paper to a more careful ization bear no relation to one another. Since
study of this relationship, making use of two the various views discussed above suggest
quite different bodies of data. First, the In- that the relationship between these two vari-
ternational Monetary Fund (1982) has re- ables could be either negative or positive, it
cently provided an extraordinarily rich set of is appropriate to use a two-tailed test to
information on public finances disaggregated determine if we can reject the null hypothesis
by level of government. From this data, I in favor of the alternatives.
have been able to assemble measures of the
extent of fiscal centralization for a sample of 11. Empirical Results: The State-Local Sector
43 countries. The second sample is quite
different: it consists of the state-local sector As a measure of the "size" of the public
in each of the 48 contiguous states in the sector, the Leviathan view suggests that we
United States. For this second sample, I focus on the level of tax revenue that the
explore the association between the budget- state extracts from the economy. Normaliz-
ary size of state and local government in ing for the level of income, I take as the
each state and the degree of decentralization dependent variable for this part of the study
of the state-local " fisc." aggregate state-local tax receipts in each state
Each of the two samples has its relative as a fraction of personal income (G). The
strengths and weaknesses for purposes of appropriate measure of the extent of de-
this study. The international sample encom- centralization is less clear. In consequence, I
passes much greater diversity in governmen- have used three plausible indices of state-local
tal structure and consequently provides con- decentralization. The first two are fiscal
siderably more variation in the variables of centralization ratios: the state share of state-
interest. There is, in a sense, more to work local general revenues ( R , a revenue mea-
with here. However, this comes at some cost, sure) and the state share of state-local total
for the state-local data are undoubtedly more expenditure (E, an expenditure measure). As
reliable and comparable than those from a third and a nonfiscd index of decentraliza-
different countries; there should, therefore, tion, I have employed the absolute number
be less in the way of measurement error and of local government units in the state ( L ) . 4
differing classifications of budgetary items. This variable is suggested by Brennan and
Finally, there is the issue of the extent of Buchanan's observation that "the ~otential
fiscal mobility. There must typically exist for fiscal exploitation varies inversely with
greater mobility across state than national the number of competing governmental units
boundaries suggesting that fiscal decen- in the inclusive territory" (1980, p. 185).'
tralization, from the Brennan-Buchanan
perspective, should enforce a greater fiscal
"discipline" on state than on national 4 1 experimented with some variants of L involving
governments. In short, the scope for state the normalization of the number of local governments
governments to extract "surplus" from their for land area and for population size. In these forms, its
explanatory power was considerablv reduced compared
residents is probably less than for the central to its unnorrnalized Corm
government. Nevertheless, state governments 5 ~ ann interesting theoretical paper, Dennis Epple
are surely in a much less constrained posi- and Allan Zelenitz. (1981) have explored the extent to
tion than are the myriad of smaller local which cornpetition among local jurisdictions can limit
the power of local governments to extract tax revenues
governments that compete with one another frorn their residents. They find that increasing the num-
within a state's borders. The Leviathan model ber of local jurisdictions limits the scope for such taxa-
would thus predict that, other things equal, tion. but cannot eliminate it entirely.
V O L . 75 NO. 4 OA TES: S E A R C H I N G FOR LEVIA T1IA.V 751
Note: The numbers in parentheses below the estimated coefficients are the absolute
values of the t-statistic. An asterisk indicates that the estimated coefficient is statisticall?
significant at the .05 level (using a two-tail test). U = percentage of state's population
residing within Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA): P = population (in
millions); Y = state personal income per capita: I = intergovernmental grants as a
percentage of state-local general revenues.
sion model are not satisfied. To correct for services to more densely populated areas.8
this, I have used the logistic transformation There exists a body of theoretical and econo-
to create a new dependent variable whose metric work suggesting that intergovernmen-
value can range over the whole set of real tal grants provide a significant stimulus to
numbers (see, for example, Robert Pindyck expenditures by the recipient. The findings
and Daniel Rubinfeld, 1981, p. 287). Table 3 here are consistent with this. The variable I,
reports the findings for the-transformed G the percentage of state-local general revenues
(denoted G'). The results, incidentally, do that comes from intergovernmental grants,
not differ substantively from those if the has the expected positive coefficient and is
transformation is not used. statistically significant in equation (2R).
The first three eauations in Table 3 are the Of central interest here is the effect of
simple regressions of G ' on each of the mea- including these control variables on the mea-
sures of decentralization. They are roughly sured influence of the decentralization vari-
consistent with the rank correlations, indicat- ables. The fiscal centralization ratios, R and
ing negative associations of G' with R and E, retain their negative sign, but in neither
E. The simple correlation with L is now case can we reject the null hypothesis of no
positive but remains very weak. The next association. The number of local govern-
three equations attempt to control for the ments L now has a negative sign (consistent
influenck of other kev variables on the size of with the Leviathan view) and a somewhat
the public sector. The level of per capita larger t-statistic, but we are likewise unable
income ( Y ) , for example, has a positive and to reject the null hypothesis of no association
significant association with the size of the at the .05 level. The results of the multiple-
public sector (consistent with earlier studies regression analysis do not appear to provide
of Wagner's Law). Population size ( P ) ex-
hibits a postivie sign but is not significantly
different from zero in any of the three equa- ' ~ u b i n f e l d has suggested that the negative and sig-
tions. Next. the extent of urbanization ( U ) is nificant sign of the estimated coefficient of the urbaniza-
negatively ;elated to G' and is statistically tion vanable could be interpreted as providing support
significant in one of the three equations. for Leviathan. The contention is that in more highl?
urbanized areas. the Tiebout process of sorting can
Other things equal, the more urbanized a better work itself out. Thus, more highly urbanized
state, the smaller is its public sector, reflect- states are likely, from this perspective. to be effectively
ing perhaps some economies in providing more decentralized.
VOL. 75 NO. 4 O A T E S : S E A R C H I N G FOR LE VI,4 THA,V 753
.Yore: The numbers in parentheses below the estimated coeflicients are the absolute values of the associated t-statistic.
An asterisk indicates that the estimated coeflicient is statistically significant at the .05 level (using a two-tail test):
Y = income per capita in U.S. dollars for 1977; P = population (in millions); L' = percentage of population living in
urban areas; I = intergovernmental grants as a percentage of total government general revenues.
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[Footnotes]
5
The Implications of Competition Among Jurisdictions: Does Tiebout Need Politics?
Dennis Epple; Allan Zelenitz
The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 89, No. 6. (Dec., 1981), pp. 1197-1217.
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References
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