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SANDLER and SHELTON [6] recently made a significant contribution to the theory of benefit spillovers in a setting of local governments. Unlike previous authors [1, 2, 3, 7], they have integrated this theory with the possibility of tax exportation. Their analysis allows them to derive certain predictions about the effect of tax exporting on the levels of public good production in both the tax exporting and the tax importing jurisdictions.
This paper does not question the fruitfulness of their approach. It does, however, argue that if different and, perhaps, more realistic assumptions are made about the connection between tax spillouts and the level of public goods actually chosen, then their predictions about the effects on public good output levels may not be valid. Section 1 reiterates the relevant portion of the SANDLER-SHELTON argument. Section 2 presents an alternate formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides information on a study on the elasticity of substitution of the median voter. Goal of the study concerning the elasticity of substitution between schooling and other goods; Description of a model used by economist M. C. Lovell on the consumption of public education by families; Implication of the study for the voting rules and tax structures.

Comments on a paper by authors W. Mark Crain and Robert Tollison regarding the productivity of congressional tenure in the United States. Limitations of the study; Analysis of the distribution of public goods by the federal government; Significance of the distribution of federal expenditures across states.