This document summarizes a presentation on analyzing spatial patterns in California school districts' adoption of parcel taxes between 1983-2017. It finds that 70% of parcel tax elections occurred in the Bay Area, with districts in this region more likely to adopt these taxes due to liberal attitudes and wealth. The analysis models parcel tax adoption as an interdependent policy decision, finding evidence that districts influence each other through learning from nearby adoptions. Various robustness checks confirm the results, suggesting geographic concentration stems from diffusion of these taxes within the Bay Area.

1. Discover and Diffuse a New Tax Base:
Spatial Analysis of School Parcel Tax
Adoption in California
Soomi Lee (University of La Verne)
Hao Sun (University at Albany, SUNY)
111th National Tax Association Meeting
November 15, 2018
New Orleans, LA

2. Goal

3. California Parcel Tax

4. “Something About the Bay Area,” the
center of “the parcel tax movement”
• 70% of the 695 school parcel elections were held in
the Bay Area between 1983 and 2017.

5. Number of School Parcel Tax Elections in California:
Bay Area vs. Non-Bay Area, 1983-2017

6. Geographic Concentration of Parcel Tax Usage
in California School Districts (2017)
San Francisco
Bay Area

7. Previous Literature
• Sonstelie (2015): Liberal attitudes towards taxation
and spending.
• Hill and Kiewiet (2015, unpublished): Wealthy and
liberal school districts
• Lang and Sonstelie (2015): Separate regressions for
the Bay and non-Bay Area. 2/3 of variations not
explained.
• Lee (2016): Separate proposal and voting stages.
The Bay Area indicator significant at the proposal
stage only.

8. Policy Diffusion:
Interdependent Policy Choices
• Determinants of policy choices: endogenous
(internal) factors as well as external factors.
External factors: interdependence, influence by
other governments (Braun and Gilardi 2006; Berry
and Berry 2007; Graham et al. 2008)
• Mechanisms
• Learning
• Emulation
• Competition

9. Previous Studies in Local Contexts
• Municipal living wage (Martin 2001), Florida’s
development impact fee (Jeong 2006), California
school districts’ charter school adoption (Rincke
2007), municipal antismoking policy adoption
(Shipan and Volden 2008), Oklahoma’s municipal
local option sales tax adoption (Burge and Piper
2012), Florida counties’ unreserved general fund
balances (Guo and Wang 2017), tax incremental
financing in Missouri counties (Mitchell et al 2017),
and New York property tax reassessment (Eom et al
2017).

10. School Parcel Taxes
• Mechanism: Policy learning
• An acecdote:

11. Data and Method

12. Results

13. Robustness Checks

14. Conclusion

15. Thank you.