Abstract
To what extent do local revenue decisions depend on the opportunities and constraints created by provisions for direct democracy in local charters? We treat local government charters as a constitutional contract to identify the potential consequences for local government revenue decisions that arise from provisions for direct democracy. This framework bridges competing models and empirically tests propositions linking local revenues in large cities between 1981 and 2004 to the incentive structure resulting from city charter provisions for initiative, referendum, and recall. We find that initiative provisions stimulate demands for public goods leading to greater revenues but that referendum and recall provisions constrain revenue growth.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
