The Median Voter, Voting, and Local Government Employment*

Abstract

This paper provides an explanation for the level of local government employment by developing a median voter model that allows for migration into and out of the city, a local government balanced-budget constraint, and voting behavior by public employees that reflects their role as both demanders and suppliers of local government goods. Unlike previous research, the model developed here explicitly considers voting (for the incumbent) probability density functions which furthermore need not be stationary. The main conclusions of the model are that, ceteris paribus, it is plausible that the level of local government employment varies inversely with the public employee wage demand and with the elasticity of the privately employed voting population with respect to the local tax rate but directly with the voter participation rate of public employees. Contrary to previous theoretical research, there is no determinate relationship between the level of local government employment and the voter participation rate of privately employed citizens. Inferences concerning the structure of local government are also discussed.

Municipal Amalgamation and the Growth of the Local Public Sector in Sweden*

“…Assuming that all revenues are expended, they find that each jurisdiction's monopoly power-and total expenditures-can be reduced by increasing the number of competing jurisdictions. Using a median-voter model, Courant, Gramlich, and Rubinfeld (1979) and Bender and Fixler (1989) conclude that the ability of local government employees to attain spending levels above that desired by the privately employed median voter is indirectly related to the migration elasticity of the latter group with respect to the local tax rate. As an inference of this work, Bender and Fixler (1989, pp.…”

Local Politics and Economic Geography: Information Aggregation and Polarization

“…See Auffhammer and Carson () and Kim and Law () for empirical studies of political decentralization, and Bender and Fixler () for a theoretical voting model with a focus on public employees. None of these papers consider asymmetric information or NEG.…”