<x-flowed>There are a number of articles that investigate the impact of district elections on per-capita local expenditures (controlling for other factors).  Most find that the method of election has no effect on per-capita expenditures.  Following is a list of the relevant literature.

Tim

Baqir, Reza, "Districting and Government Overspending," 110 Journal of Political Economy 1318-1354 (2002).

Bradbury, John Charles and E. Frank Stephenson, "Local Government Structure and Public Expenditures," 115 Public Choice 186-198 (2003).

Farnham, Paul G., "The Impact of Citizen Influence on Local Government Expenditure," 64 Public Choice 201-212 (1990).

Langbein, Laura I., Philip Crewson and Charles N. Brasher, "Rethinking Ward and At-Large Elections in Cities:  Total Spending, the Number of Locations of Selected City Services, and Policy Types," 88 Public Choice 275-293 (1996).

Morgan, David R. and John P. Pelissero, "Urban Policy:  Does Political Structure Matter?," 74 American Political Science Review 999-1006 (1980).

Reid, Gary J., "Tests of Institutional Versus Non-Institutional Models of Local Public Expenditure Determination," 70 Public Choice 315-333 (1991).

Southwick, Lawrence Jr., "Local Government Spending and At-Large Versus District Representation; Do Wards Result in More 'Pork'?," 9 Economics and Politics 173-203 (1997).



At 11:12 AM 3/31/2005 -0800, you wrote:

I d appreciate suggestions for literature examining the impact of district versus at-large local elections on the quality of decision-making.



Thank you.



Charlene Wear Simmons, Ph.D.
Chief Consultant
Joint Legislative Audit Committee
phone 319-3300  fax 319 2352
Charlene.Simmons@asm.ca.gov

Tim R. Sass
Professor                               Voice:   (850)644-7087
Department of Economics         Fax:      (850)644-4535
Florida State University                E-mail:   tsass@coss.fsu.edu
Tallahassee, FL  32306-2180     Internet: http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/~tsass


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