p. 1 Did John Serrano Vote for Proposition 13? A Reply to Stark and Zasloff’s “Tiebout and Tax Revolts: Did Serrano Really Cause Proposition 13?” William A. Fischel Professor of Economics and Patricia F. and William B. Hale '44 Professor in Arts and Sciences Dartmouth College 6106 Rockefeller Hanover, NH 03755 office: (603) 646-2940
[email protected] dept. fax: (603) 646-2122 www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/ Dartmouth College Economics Department Working Paper 03-13, draft of August 2003. Comments welcome. Because the article is subject to revision, please note month and year of draft in citations. Acknowledgements: I thank without implicating Kirk Stark and Jonathan Zasloff for their prompt responses to my requests for data and their patient willingness to answer my other inquiries. I also thank David S. Erikson for locating some obscure documents at Berkeley and Jon Sonstelie for providing me with 1970 school district data. Abstract: I argued that California’s school-finance decision, Serrano v. Priest, which required equalized school spending, caused Proposition 13, which decimated property taxes in 1978. Kirk Stark and Jonathan Zasloff offer evidence to the contrary. They found that cities with larger proportions of high-income and elderly voters, not those with high tax-base per pupil, accounted for the dramatic vote swing from a defeated 1972 property-tax-limitation initiative to the successful 1978 vote. I show that their results are entirely consistent with my hypothesis. I also parry their claims that institutional problems, rather than Serrano-compliance, forestalled the legislature’s response to the tax revolt. Fischel, 8/12/03 p.