Incumbent Behavior: Vote-Seeking, Tax-Setting, and Yardstick Competition
By TIMOTHY BESLEY AND ANNE CASE *
This paper develops a model of the political economy of tax-setting in a
multijurisdictionawl orld, where voters' choices and incumbentb ehaviora re
determineds imultaneouslyV. otersa re assumedt o make comparisonsb etween
jurisdictionst o overcomep oliticala gencyp roblems.T hisf orces incumbentsin to
a (yardstick)c ompetitioni n whicht hey care about what other incumbentsa re
doing. Wep rovide a theoreticafl rameworka nd empiricale videnceu sing U.S.
state data from 1960 to 1988. The results are encouraging to the view that
vote-seekinga nd tax-settinga re tied togethert hrought he nexus of yardstick
competition(. JEL D72, H20, H71)