LOCAL SALES TAXES AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL GRANTS IN FISCAL FEDERALISM: DETERMINANTS, INTERACTIONS, AND BUDGETARY EFFECTS THROUGH LOCAL HETEROGENEITY AND INTER-JURISDICTIONAL COMPETITION by JONGMIN SHON (Under the Direction of Yilin Hou) ABSTRACT The U.S. Federalism has been concerned with how to best place functions and instruments in a decentralized system. Based on the highlights in the fiscal federalism literatures, this dissertation addresses three issues by focusing on two fiscal instruments in county governments – local sales tax and intergovernmental grants. First, this dissertation examines the determinants of local sales tax adoption and rates considering both the internal condition of local heterogeneity and the external condition of fiscal interaction. The empirical examinations of the determinants provide strong evidence that fiscal interaction is important to the decision to adopt local sales tax and to set local sales tax rate. Moreover, the political conflicts of interests between the actors of representatives and voters- taxpayers are observed in the adoption and rate setting. Second, this dissertation examines the interactions between the two fiscal instruments that have different purposes. Assuming that local sales taxes are local authority and power, and that intergovernmental grants are the upper-level support for and control to the lower-level, this dissertation finds that the two fiscal instruments have reverse relationships. Third, this dissertation examines the budgetary effects of the two fiscal instruments on property tax burdens, revenues, and own-source revenues in county governments. Both fiscal instruments are empirically shown to increase local revenues, while only local sales taxes statistically expand local own-source revenues. Moreover, local sales taxes reduce property tax burdens, while intergovernmental grants raise the burdens. Unlike the existing literatures that focus on local jurisdictions within states, another contribution of this dissertation is a large data set that covers all U.S. county governments for a long-period. However, the empirical examinations clarify limitations that intra-jurisdictional competition matters in U.S. fiscal federalism. The contributions and limitations provide the foundation the future research that will handle intra-jurisdictional competition, and better tackle the details of fiscal federalism. INDEX WORDS: fiscal federalism; local sales tax; intergovernmental grants; fiscal interaction; inter-jurisdictional competition; public choice LOCAL SALES TAXES AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL GRANTS IN FISCAL FEDERALISM: DETERMINANTS, INTERACTIONS, AND BUDGETARY EFFECTS THROUGH LOCAL HETEROGENEITY AND INTER-JURISDICTIONAL COMPETITION by JONGMIN SHON B.A., Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Korea, 2003 M.A., Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Korea, 2006 M.P.A., Rutgers – The State University of New Jersey, 2008 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2013 © 2013 JONGMIN SHON All Rights Reserved LOCAL SALES TAXES AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL GRANTS IN FISCAL FEDERALISM: DETERMINANTS, INTERACTIONS, AND BUDGETARY EFFECTS THROUGH LOCAL HETEROGENEITY AND INTER-JURISDICTIONAL COMPETITION by JONGMIN SHON Major Professor: Yilin Hou Committee: David Agrawal W. David Bradford Deborah A. Carroll Thomas P. Lauth Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia August 2013 DEDICATION To my parents and sister iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my all respect, love and gratitude to my all beloved family, professors, colleagues, and friends who have led me to this page with thorough support and encouragement. First of all, I cannot express my all respect, love, and gratitude to my father, mother and sister more than their unconditional support and endless love. I have owed the most sincere and earnest gratitude to my academic advisors: Dr. Inchul Kim for my B.A. and M.A. in the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Dr. Dorothy Olshfski and Dr. Kathe Callahan for my M.P.A. in Rutgers – the State University of New Jersey, and Dr. Yilin Hou for my Ph.D. in the University of Georgia. Moreover, I am very sorry to have knocked their doors for academic and personal inquires so many times that they are still sharing their valuable time with me. I would like to thank to the committee members of my Ph.D. dissertation: Dean Thomas Lauth, Dr. David Bradford, Dr. Deborah Carroll, and Dr. David Agrawal. I cannot stand at this point without those who have trained me in the Department of Public Administration and Policy, UGA: Dr. Andrew Whitford, Dr. Barry Bozeman, Dr. Chao Guo, Dr. Edward Kellough, Dr. Hal Rainey, Dr. Laurence O’Toole, Dr. Jeffrey Wenger, and Dr. Vicky Wilkins. In this page, I would also like to leave my gratitude to those who have encouraged me out of the department: Dr. Changsoo Choe, Dr. Taeho Eom, Dr. Hanjun Park, Dr. Jinman Kyun, Dr. Rusty Brooks, Laura Meadows, and Sandrika Walker. In addition to the faculty members, I would like to give my gratitude to my colleagues whom I have shared much time with: Dr. Soo-Young Lee, Dr. Taesik Yun, Dr. Sangyub Ryu, Dr. Young-Joo Lee, Dr. Eunju Rho, Dr. Seungha Nam, Dr. Moon-Young Eom, Dr. Sunjoo v Kwak, Dr. Jongone Chung, and Dr. Chris Goodman, as well as Jaeyoung Lim, Kukkyoung Moon, Yoonkyoung Cho, Harin Woo, Bongjun Kim, Soojin Kim, Justin Bullock, and Ping Zhang who are all soon-to-be doctors. My gratitude also goes to my friends: Yongjin Choi, Gunhyung Cho, Sieun Kim, Jaehan Jung, and Micheal Vorgetts. Finally, I would love to leave my special gratitude to Sooyun Choi. Jongmin Shon vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................v LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... ix LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................................x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................1 1.1. The Statement of Knowledge............................................................................................1 1.2. Federal Government, Fiscal federalism and Fiscal Instruments .......................................3 1.3. Purpose and Potential Contribution of This Dissertation .................................................6 1.4. Structure of This Dissertation .........................................................................................11 CHAPTER 2 ALTERNATIVE THEORIES FOR FISCAL FEDERALISM................................14 2.1. Fiscal Functions in federalism ........................................................................................16 2.2. Tiebout Model and Inter-Jurisdictional Competition .....................................................22 2.3. Public Choice Theory for Fiscal federalism ...................................................................42 2.4. Empirical Research Relevant to the Theories Above .....................................................67 2.5. Summary of Theories Above ..........................................................................................86 CHAPTER 3 TARGETS AND PURPOSE OF THIS DISSERTATION .....................................96 3.1. Targets of Fiscal Instruments for This Dissertation ........................................................96 3.2. Local Sales Tax in the States ..........................................................................................98 3.3. Significance of This Dissertation ..................................................................................129 CHAPTER 4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES ...............................................142 4.1. Determinants of Local Sales Tax Adoption and the Tax Rate Setting ........................142 vii 4.2. Interactions between Local Autonomy/Power and Upper-Level Control/Support .....147 4.3. Budgetary Effects of Local Sales Tax and Intergovernmental Grants ........................153 CHAPTER 5 EMPIRICAL MODELS AND DATA DESCRIPTION........................................166 5.1. Empirical Models ........................................................................................................166 5.2. Source of Data and Descriptive Statistics ...................................................................187 CHAPTER 6 EMPIRICAL RESULTS .......................................................................................200 6.1. Cross-Sectional Dependence for Inter-Jurisdictional Competition .............................200 6.2. Result 1: Determinants of Adoption Local Sales Tax and Setting Its Rate ................205 6.3. Result 2: Interactions between Local Autonomy/Power and Upper-Level Control/Support ...........................................................................................................219 6.4. Result 3: Budgetary Effects of the Two Fiscal Instruments, and Their Interactions ..222 CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSION......................................................................................................260 7.1. Summary of Empirical Findings .................................................................................260 7.2. Contribution to the Existing Literature .......................................................................266