The Role of Direct Democracy Within Nested
Municipal Institutions
Barbara Coyle McCabe
School of Public Affairs
Arizona State University
barbara.mccabe@asu.edu
&
Richard C. Feiock
Askew School of Public Administration and Policy
Florida State University
www.fsu.edu/~spap/feiock
rfeiock@coss.fsu.edu
Paper presented at Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Chicago
April 3-6 2003. Paul Lewis, Max Neiman, George Fredrickson and Robert Stein
provided helpful comments on earlier versions. We gratefully acknowledge the
generous support for this research project provided by a grant from the Lincoln Institute
for Land Policy.
Introduction
Like constitutions, city charter provisions structure the incentives of political
actors and determine the kinds of decisions that will (or will not) be rewarded (Myerson
1995). As a result, different formal governance arrangements are expected to lead to
different policy outcomes. In this paper a contractual approach is applied to local
political institutions (Maser 1998). Treating local institutions as a constitutional contract
allows us identify the potential consequences for local government tax, spending and
borrowing decisions that arise from provisions for direct democracy.
Our conceptual framework bridges competing models prevalent in the local public
finance literature. Empirical tests of several propositions regarding fiscal policy in large
cities between 1980 and 1996 are derived from the framework. The analysis provides
preliminary evidence to support these propositions.
Nested Institutions
The new institutionalism in economics and political science identifies hierarchies
among types of rules, with the resulting levels of action categorized according to their
affect (Ostrom 1990, 1994; Brennan and Buchanan 1980, 1985). Constitutional-level
rules establish the overall rules of the game and lay out the basic system of governance.
Substantive rules deal with a specific policy area such as the environment or taxation.
Ostrom describes this hierarchy as “nested,” evoking the image of lower level,
substantive rules imbedded in a framework of higher-level constitutional rules. Each of
these levels of rules and actions is described below, with examples keyed to their use in
this study.
1
Constitutional-level rules delineate the framework for legitimate action, including
the procedures for formulating other rules and policy for aggregating choices (Brennan
and Buchanan 1980, 1985; Ostrom 1990). Form of government provisions (such as
separation of executive and legislative powers), electoral scheme (such as district or atlarge elections) and provisions for direct democracy (such as referendum requirements or
the allowance of citizen ’s initiatives) are examples of constitutional level rules.
Because institutions are nested, specific policy outcomes will depend, not only on
the provisions of the substantive rules, but also on the opportunities and constraints
created in the constitutional-level rules. Hansen (1983), for example, found provisions for
citizen initiative to be the single factor that distinguished states in which legislatures had
adopted tax and spending limitations from those that in which they had not. Hansen’s
findings suggest that the likelihood of passing a state tax limit depended on the presence
of a constitutional rule, not just on conditions in the environment such as the tax burden.
Similarly, using data from opinion polls, Gerber (1996) found that states with
referendum provisions adopted policies that were more in line with median voter
preferences than states without such constitutional-level rules. In both cases, the mere
presence of the rule--not necessarily its use--was sufficient to make the difference in
policy choices.
Cities differ in their choices of constitutional as well as substantive rules.
Dillon’s rule holds that local governments are “creatures of the state” and can only
undertake activities the state specifically authorizes. Nearly all states, however, have
made provisions for municipal home rule. Home rule cities enact charters that establish
2
governance structures and rules of governance. Charters may also broaden municipal
powers beyond those expressly granted by the state (Krane, Rigos and Hill 2001). City
charters express constitutional-level rules that define the citizens’ rights to have their
preferences included in the process of public decision making (Maser 1985, 1998; Miller
1985). State rules may provide options for forms of municipal government, but the
selection of local governance institutions is primarily a local choice.
Transaction Resource Theory
Whether in agreements between individuals or in constitutions, parties to a
contract agree to cooperate because the potential gains of cooperating are greater than the
status quo. The potential alone is not enough. Potential parties to a contract face
problems of coordination, when they can misconstrue the efficiency gains that can be
realized by cooperating. The parties also face division problems regarding the allocation
of costs and benefits. Finally, parties to a contract bear the risk of defection, when
individuals opt out of the contract for their personal gains at the expense of collective
benefits (Coleman, Heckathorn and Maser 1989).
In simple, small-scale transactions, information can be gathered about whether
coordination will create joint benefits. Division problems can be resolved through faceto-face negotiating, and defection can be detected through monitoring. As more issues
and more parties become subject to the potential contract, the transaction costs of
mitigating these risks rise, and uncertainty increases. Transaction resource theory posits
that, in these more complex situations, individuals create governance organizations,
provided with powers and constraints, to act as third party intervenors as a means of
3
securing the benefits of cooperation. Governance organizations can provide information
services (regarding, for example, water quality) to clarify potential benefits from
coordination. They can provide division services to distribute the gains from
cooperation, or they can provide enforcement services to address the risk of defection
(Maser 1998). Essentially, government becomes "a central party common to all
contracts" (Heckathorn and Maser 1987, 164).
These contracts are necessarily incomplete in that they cannot foresee specific
future problems of cooperation, division or defection. Instead, they establish procedures
for how these problems can be resolved. In this way, these relational contracts perform
one of the most important functions of institutions: reducing uncertainty.
When local government functions as a third party in a relational contract among
citizens, constraints on governmental authority are necessary to resolve problems of
coordination, division and defection. The constitutional provisions of municipal charters
enhance cooperation among citizens in a community by defining the obligations, rewards,
and penalties imposed on contracting parties. Provisions for direct democracy can be
central to the relational contract among citizens because they impose constraints on
government that function as a mechanism to overcome barriers to collectively beneficial
actions among citizens and mitigate the three major risks to cooperation (Heckathorn and
Maser 1987; Maser 1998).
The risk of incoordination creates a demand for rules to promote
stability and decisiveness in governance. The risk of inequitable divisions
creates a demand for rules to promote responsiveness, defined here in
terms of the preferences of the median voter. And the risk of defection
gives rise to the demand for rules to promote efficiency.” (Maser 1998:
541).
4
The charter provides constitutional rules to reconcile coordination, division, and
defection.
Coordination problems arise if the parties can misconstrue the feasibility of
cooperating and risk missing out on efficiency gains. Rules that promote stability in
resolving controversies and enforcing the contract facilitate cooperation. Procedures that
increase stability decrease the ability for parties to change the rules for each new
cooperation problem or to undo prior agreements.
The second barrier to cooperation, division problems, arises when preferences
conflict. Division problems are especially difficult to anticipate because preferences are
not fixed. Resolving division problems requires negotiation in order to arrive at a fair
and equitable allocation of the benefits and costs of joint action (Heckathorn and Maser
1987). Here, local government becomes the arbitrating third party that is granted the
authority to allocate cooperation gains or to narrow the division range.
The final barrier to cooperation, defection, is most directly linked to efficiency.
When government becomes the third party intervenor, defection problems occur when
elected or appointed government officials engage in individually rational, opportunistic
behavior at the expense of the citizenry. The notion of government as Leviathan is an
extreme example of government that exploits the governed for its own purposes.
Defection also includes a host of more mundane principle-agent problems such as
officials' not holding firm to their campaign promises or bureaucrats withholding
information that would facilitate an accurate assessment of their accomplishments. If
elected officials credibly committed to a policy rule, the problem of moral hazard would
be diminished. Opportunistic behavior results from freedom for ex post action (Dixit
5
1996). Opportunistic behavior also arises because contracts are either incomplete or
contain loopholes that can be exploited to an individual's benefit (Milgrom and Roberts
1992). Defection problems can be eased by measures intended to promote efficiency that
keep public policies in line with public preferences.
Cities confront each of these coordination barriers in making fiscal choices.
Decisions about the levels and types of revenues extracted from the population pose three
separate coordination problems. What will work? What means are fair (or, at least,
which individuals should pay)? And what assures the governors' compliance with the
citizens' preferences? Constitutional-level rules, exogenous to each city’s annual fiscal
decisions, delineate how decisions can be made. Rules for direct democracy grant city
residents a voice in making these choices.
Local Direct Democracy
Direct democracy transfers legislative power directly to the people in an effort to
ensure that public policy is not inconsistent with the popular will. Each mechanism for
direct democracy offers different opportunities for direct citizen action. The initiative
allows voters to propose a legislative measure or constitutional amendment by filing a
petition bearing the required number of signatures. The referendum refers an existing or
proposed law to a popular vote. The recall allows voters to remove an official from
office by filing a petition demanding a vote on the officials continued tenure in office
(Cronin, 1989). In delineating the contractual implications of local government
institutions we borrow extensively from the work of Steven Maser (1995; 1998). Maser
6
uses provisions for direct democracy as examples of rules to address each of the three
contracting problems discussed above.
Provision of the initiative provides a constitutional safeguard to address the risk of
“incoordination” (Maser, 1998, p. 541). Coordination failures occur when government
rejects outcomes preferred by the median voter or accepts outcomes that the median voter
dislikes. Certain rules enhance predictability and stability by restricting the set of
possible outcomes. Separation of powers, checks and balances and supermajority
requirements all address coordination risks and promote stability. Likewise ballot
initiatives may reduce coordination problems for local polities and enhance policy
stability by empowering the citizens to place a measure on the ballot when legislators
have not acted.
Initiatives have to be accepted or rejected on a majority vote, which limits the
problem of issue cycling (Riker 1982) and heightens coordination. Furthermore, since
the median voters’ preferences are most apt to win, those that draft the initiative measure
are unlikely to deviate from their idea of the median voters preferences (Maser, 1998:
546). When this logic is applied to local government fiscal choices it suggests that
initiatives should promote stability. Nevertheless, if the median voters preference for
pubic goods is greater than the status quo, initiatives may result in higher levels of
taxation, spending, and debt by encouraging voters to reveal preferences honestly.
Similar to an assurance game, people who are willing to pay more for public goods are
not bound to do so as a consequence of revealing their preference. Nonetheless, the
7
absolute value of the change in revenues or expenditures, rather than the direction of the
change, is an indicator of fiscal stability.
Different kinds of issues are typically resolved through different kinds of
processes. Distributional issues are among those most often addressed through
initiatives. Efficiency (i.e. “good government” issues) are more often settled through the
legislative process (Matsusaka 1992). Policy outcomes that differ because of rules
providing for initiatives (and other measures of direct democracy) may be expected to be
found in cities’ decisions to tax and spend. If initiatives promote stability and reduce the
likelihood of opportunistic behavior among elected officials, we would expect greater
stability in spending in initiative than non-initiative cities.
A referendum mitigates the risk of division failure by granting citizens the right to
call a pubic vote after officials have acted. For example, elected officials, intent on reelection, may behave opportunistically by advocating spending on bricks and mortar
projects supported by public debt that provide visible evidence of their actions in office to
reward their supporters (Feiock and Clingermayer 1992). Referenda provisions may
constrain such patterns of behavior. Uncertainty enables Leviathan to reap greater
revenue yields, and external controls such as referendums curb uncertainty (Brennan and
Buchanan 1980). To the extent that higher levels of local taxing, spending, and
borrowing result from opportunistic behaviors of public decision makers and uncertainty,
the presence of the referendum would be expected to result in less tax, spending, and
debt.
8
Recall provisions mitigate the risk of defection by granting citizens the rights to
strip elected officials of their authority to act. Defection provisions are intended to hold
actors accountable in order to ward off inefficient, opportunistic behavior (Maser 1998:
544). Recall provisions cannot eliminate moral hazard, but they do provide a mechanism
for addressing defection once it is discovered.
If recall provisions promote efficient behavior, the revenue systems of cities with
recall provisions should rely more fully on efficient, market-like revenue extraction
devices than in cities without recall provisions. This prediction is consistent with
Matususaka’s finding at the state level that states with provisions for direct democracy
rely more on fees than taxes. Fees, like prices in the market, act as a direct signal of
consumer preferences, and the ability to charge beneficiaries the costs of services has
been described as a near guarantee of efficiency (Ostrom, Warren and Tiebout 1961)
With taxes, decisions about rates and expenditures are made by elected and
appointed officials. These officials suffer from limited information in attempting to be
responsive to voters because they must estimate voters’ preferences for taxing and
spending. Even without opportunistic behavior, revenue systems that rely more on taxes
than fees are less efficient because the revenue devices are not automatic measures of
actual consumer preferences. The fact that cities must provide public goods means that
the revenue composition cannot be completely fee-based (Musgrave and Musgrave,
1976). But cities can depend on these revenue sources to differing degrees.
We would
expect, however, that cities with recall provisions draw a greater proportion of their
revenues from fees and charges than other cities.
9
We anticipate that the simple presence of rules for direct democracy—even if they
are infrequently used—mitigate elected officials’ opportunistic behavior that deviates
from constituents’ preferences (Matsusaka 1995; Gerber 1996)
Local Fiscal Behavior and Models of Government
How might a contractual approach to local governance be applied to the empirical
study of local fiscal choices?
First, it may provide further evidence that within a
democratic polity fundamental differences in constitutional rules lead to different
substantive outcomes, a finding that may have great practical value in the search for
efficient institutional choices. Second, the contractual approach may provide a
conceptual link to help reconcile competing theories of fiscal choices that have guided
empirical study.
Two competing models have dominated the study of local government fiscal
behavior: a median-voter/benevolent dictator model and a Leviathan/budget maximizing
bureaucratic model (Shapiro and Sonstelie 1982). Both share the assumption that local
officials are self-interested. Under the first model, however, local officials, intent on
reelection, seek to maximize the community-wide benefits of fiscal policy choices by
making decisions that are consistent with the preferences of the median voter. The
median voter model assumes that local politics work to constrain local taxation and
spending, because voters hold elected officials accountable for their fiscal choices.
Officials whose tax and spending decisions are far from those of the median voter will be
ousted from office, and replaced with officials whose decisions are closer to the median
10
voter preferences (Chicoine, Walzer and Deller 1989). Efficiencies are realized as
potential residents choose among competing cities, selecting the one with the tax and
service package that best meets their preferences (Tiebout 1956). Municipal power to
zone land means that city officials can control the density and intensity of future
development to assure that new development will add to, or at least not subtract from, the
local tax base (Hamilton 1975). With Tiebout sorting, the property tax may serve as an
efficient benefit tax, since the cities’ elected officials make decisions about both property
taxes and land use (Fischel 2000). Where these assumptions are met tax and expenditure
levels already reflect the preference of the median voter.
The Leviathan model, on the other hand, describes a government driven to
maximize its tax “take” by exploiting its citizens (Oates 1985). In this model, selfinterested officials are strategic actors that use the power of the purse for personal gain,
suggesting that agency failure is the norm. Since the forces that compel politicians and
bureaucrats to maximize revenues are intrinsic to politics, exogenous rules are needed to
limit taxing and spending (Brennan and Buchanan 1980). The tax and expenditure limits
(TELs) that states impose on cities are an example of such a rule. Empirical findings that
TELs are effective in reducing revenues or expenditures have been cited as prima facia
evidence of Leviathan government (McGuire 1999).
The median voter and the Leviathan models speak to the importance of politics in
decisions to tax or spend. Ironically, each ignores differences in political institutions
among cities, and assumes that local governments behave monolithically, as either
fiscally-restrained, median-voter-pleasers or as a tax-maximizing, citizen-exploiters.
11
Similarly, Tiebout’s (1956) model assumes local decision makers are apolitical, and that
the tax and service packages they offer are intended to “attract enough residents to stay
solvent” (Fischel 2000, p. 9). Perhaps because of the focus on residents shopping among
communities, tests of the Tiebout model have tended to address the demand side, leaving
the supply side of the model, which would tackle political distinctions among local
governments, less fully developed (Fischel 2000).
Despite recognizing distinctions in the nature of higher-level rules and in the
factors of demand, the models ignore institutional variations in governance among cities.
Local constitutional-level rules for direct democracy may function much like stateimposed rules—as an exogenous constraint to keep local tax and spending decisions
closer to the preferences of the median voter by promoting stability and efficiency in
fiscal choices. In addition, the constitutional choice of municipal government form would
be expected to create incentives that differ in terms of the behaviors that are rewarded,
and in terms of the incentives’ power to prompt opportunistic behavior.
Building upon the work of Oliver Williamson (1981; 1999) Frant (1996) argues
that council manager governments replace high-powered incentives with low powered
incentives. High-powered incentives result from market or market-like transactions, and
are powerful because the benefits from the transaction are directly realized by its parties.
In markets, high-powered incentives lead to efficiencies in allocation. However, when
politics substitute for markets as the medium for exchange, high-powered incentives may
fail to promote production efficiencies that lead to cost reductions; instead they lead to
political opportunism (Frant 1996).
12
Using Maser’s (1998) terminology, institutional provisions in local charters may
address division problems. The proposition that council-manager government insulates
governing from “private regarding” demands (see Banfield and Wilson 1963, Lineberry
and Fowler 1967, and Morgan and Pellisero 1980) suggests that division problems were
one of the key rationales for that form of government.
The credible constraint of morally hazardous behavior is fundamental to the
efficiency of public organizations (Miller 2000). We expect that the Leviathan model is
more likely to be operative in cities operating under charters which provide for mayorcouncil government form and lack provisions for direct democracy. Local politicians in
those cities are able to reap the political benefits of their decisions to tax and spend
without the threat of direct citizen action. We expect fiscal policy choices to be more
closely linked to median voter preferences where local charters provide for council
manager government and provisions for direct democracy. We test these proposition by
examining the revenue choices of large US cities from 1980-1996 in light of their
provisions for direct democracy, form of government and demand for services.
Approach
We test a simple model to evaluate the effects of local institutions on cities’
revenue choices, using pooled cross sectional time series data. Observations are included
for each year from 1981 to 1996 for a panel of U.S. cities with 1989 populations of at
least 75,000 that are central cities of an MSA. The two dependent variables examined
here are per capita own source revenues collected from citizens in the community and
the proportion of own-source city revenues derived from fees and charges. As
13
constitutional-level rules, the model includes form of government and the three measures
of direct democracy, initiative, referendum and recall. Per-capita personal income
provides and indicator of the fiscal presences residents. Our analysis also controls for
other characteristics of communities that can influence policy preferences including
population, racial homogeneity, racial segregation in the city and metropolitan area,
poverty population, and home ownership. Because our model suggests that provisions
for direct democracy will influence government responsiveness to the average tax payer,
we construct three variables that are interactions of initiative, referendum and recall with
per capita personal income.
Variables
City financial and population data were drawn from published and on-line reports
provided by the Bureau of the Census. These measures include city population, the
proportion of the population that is non-Hispanic white, the proportion living in owneroccupied housing, and per capita personal income. Dissimilarity indices1 that measures
of black white racial segregation were calculated from census tract data made available
by the Lewis Mumford Center.
1.
The following formula was used to generate segregation scores.
14
Data regarding the form of government and measures for direct democracy are
taken from surveys conducted by the International City Manager Association (ICMA) in
1981, 1986, 1991, 1996 and 2001. The average response rate for the ICMA surveys was
almost 80 percent, but some data for cities in the panel were missing in some years.
Missing observations were filled in by relying on the general assumption that city
constitutional-level institutions are not readily changed. If reported rules from the
periods before and after the missing observation were identical, we coded the same form
for the missing period. This assumes that cities did not adopt a constitutional rule, repeal
it, then readopt it between the observations. This assumption may introduce some
measurement error, but there is no reason to believe the error is systematic. As a result, it
should not introduce bias.
Results
The pooled time series models of own-source, per capita revenue and fee
dependence were estimated using ordinary least squares (OLS) with panel corrected
standard errors (PCSE) (Beck and Katz, 1996). The data is transformed to produce
serially independent errors and the Prais-Winsten transformation is employed (Gujarati,
1995). The OLS parameter estimates resulting from the estimation with PCSE are
consistent, and the estimation process deals with panel-level heteroscedasticity and
contemporaneous spatial autocorrelation (Achen 2000).
In general, as Tables 1 and 2 demonstrate, our findings strongly suggest that
institutional differences among cities lead to different fiscal choices. Perhaps most
15
importantly, these findings validate Masers’s (1998) contention that provisions for direct
democracy serve different contractual functions. Specifically, cities with recall
provisions which safeguards against defection problems (ie. Leviathan government)
imposes lesser revenue burdens on their citizens and rely more on fees and charges
instead or taxes. Table 1 estimates per capita municipal own source revenues.
Provisions for initiative and referenda increase revenues but recall significantly reduces
own-source revenues. Recall provisions reduced revenue by $508 per capita. Recall
also has a significant and positive interactive effect with per-capita personal income.
City revenue has a significant positive relationship with income, but where cities have a
recall provision, this relationship is even stronger.
Most of other variables in the model
affect revenues as anticipated. Although the percent white increased revenues, council
manager government, owner occupancy, and racial inequality in the metro area each
reduce pre capita own-source revenue burdens as predicted.
On the other hand, poverty
and racial segregation in the city lead to higher own source revenues.
(Table 1 about here.)
The results shown in Table 2 demonstrate that cities with initiative or recall
provisions are more likely to rely more heavily on the more efficient revenue sources of
fees and charges than are cities without these constitutional measures, consistent with our
expectations. Cities with initiative powers gain about 6 percent more of their own-source
revenues from fees than other cities, while cities with recall provisions gather about 11
percent more. Referendum provisions and council manager government do not exhibit
16
statistically significant effects.
The interaction of per capita income and the recall
provision is again significant. Where cities charters include the recall, higher income
leads to less reliance on fees. Black-white segregation in the city reduced reliance on
fees and charges, while poverty rates and owner occupancy increased fee reliance.
(Table 2 about here.)
Discussion
Over the past decade, a growing body of theoretical and empirical work has
enhanced our understanding of the importance of institutions as nested systems. Our
findings, although preliminary, suggest that the idea of nested institutions which establish
contractual relations can enrich our understanding of cities’ policy choices. Perhaps most
importantly, these findings validate Maser’s (1998) contention that provisions for direct
democracy serve different contractual functions by demonstrating that city constitutionallevel rules that address stability, division and defection problems lead to different fiscal
outcomes. The findings substantiate some of the nuances of rules’ effects in addressing
problems of uncertainty and in creating incentives for opportunistic behavior.
Constitutional level rules such as council-manager government or recall constrain
political incentives that encourage opportunistic behavior and higher revenue levels.
Other constitutional level rules, intended to make government more responsive to voter
preferences, increase rather than curb revenues. These findings suggests that viewing
cities as simply reformed or unreformed results in a substantial loss of information, which
17
leads us from the neatness of classification to the messiness of individual rules and their
possibly interdependent effects.
By reducing uncertainty, constitutional-level rules have been looked to as a means
of decreasing uncertainty in order to restrain the growth of Leviathan. Our findings,
however, suggest that, while the presence of rules exogenous to annual fiscal choices
appear to affect Leviathan, they do not automatically contain it. A better understanding
of the effects of different rules in shaping incentives under different conditions may make
it possible to reconcile the median voter and Leviathan models of public finance.
These initial analyses suggest that there is merit in further developing and testing
a theory of nested institutions, but the model remains incomplete. Cities’ fiscal choices
are conditioned not only by their own constitutional level rules but also by the powers
and constraints imposed on them by their states. The nested institutions of cities are
implanted within the nested institutions of their states. Most states authorize cities’
allowable sources of tax revenues and establish preferences for local policies (such as tax
, borrowing or spending levels). By considering both the levels of government as well as
levels of rules our future work will address how local institutional choices establish the
way in which local policies will be made, the constituencies that will be served and the
way in which state level preferences are implemented.
18
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American Journal of Sociology 87: 549-77.
21
Williamson, Oliver. 1999. “Public and Private Bureaucracies: A Transaction Cost
Economics Perspective,” Journal of Economics and Organizations15: 306-347.
22
Table 1
Own Source Revenues Per Capita
Variable
Coefficient
Standard Error
Constant
202.96
208.65
.97
Initiative
298.39**
125.64
2.38
Referendum
241.86*
136.35
1.77
Recall
-507.36***
117.82
-4.31
Mayor-Council Government
-121.57***
14.51
-8.54
Population
-.00006
.00004
-1.52
Per Capita Personal Income
.0503***
.0095
5.32
Income * Initiative
-.0157
.0098
-1.59
Income * Referendum
-.012
.008
-.1.56
Income * Recall
.031***
.0078
3.95
White Population
1.477***
.478
3.09
Poverty Population
671.32***
209.9
3.20
Homeowners
-1058.56***
90.88
-11.75
City Black/White Dissimilarity
8.582***
1.038
8.27
Metro Black/White Dissimilarity
-3.579***
.737
-4.86
N of cities
165
Observations
1465
Wald Chi2
7966.43
Prob > Chi2
.00
*
**
***
significant at 90% confidence level
significant at 95% confidence level
significant at 99% confidence level
23
z-score
Table 2
Reliance on Fees and Charges
Variable
Coefficient
Standard Error
z-score
Constant
-.026
.079
-.33
Initiative
.60**
.25
2.38
Referendum
.019
.065
.30
Recall
.115***
.036
3.23
Mayor-Council Government
.004
.007
.60
Population
-.4.48e-09
3.90e-09
-1.15
Per Capita Personal Income
7.82e-06***
3.03e-06
2.58
Income * Initiative
-1.36e-06
2.61e-06
-.52
Income * Referendum
-1.85e-06
3.92e-06
-.47
Income * Recall
-3.63e-06*
2.23e-06
-1.67
White Population
-.0003
.0002
-1.23
Poverty Population
.102***
.037
2.78
Homeowners
.187***
.054
3.49
City Black/White Dissimilarity
-.0008***
.0003
-2.94
Metro Black/White Dissimilarity
.00009
.0003
.28
N of cities
165
Observations
1465
Wald Chi2
864.95
Prob > Chi2
.00
*
**
***
significant at 90% confidence level
significant at 95% confidence level
significant at 99% confidence level
24