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The
Effect of Home Rule on Local Government Behavior: Is There No Rule Like
Home Rule?
URAG Working Paper #04-05
The Effect of Home Rule on Local Government Behavior: Is There No Rule Like Home Rule?* (pdf)
by Geoffrey K. Turnbull and Gyusuck Geon, September 2004
Keywords: Home rule, Dillon's rule, fiscal illusion
This paper examines how home rule affects the ability of U.S. county governments to meet their constituents' demands. The Cox specification test and the fiscal illusion estimates reveal that a greater degree of home rule meets the community's demand but also allows county governments to more thoroughly exploit voter fiscal illusion, thereby expanding county spending beyond the level that would be most preferred by voters under perfect information. The evidence from subsamples of urban and rural governments reinforces these conclusions.
Comments and questions regarding this paper may be directed to Geoffrey Turnbull at gturnbull@gsu.edu.
*The authors gratefully acknowledge Shiferaw Gurmu, Doug Krupka, Greg Lewis, Christine Roch, David Sjoquist, and Sally Wallace for their helpful comments.