Tax Equity: Environmental Influences on a Policy Outcome

Abstract

During the past two decades, political scientists and economists have contributed to our knowledge of the impacts of differing political, governmental, economic and social characteristics of jurisdictions on the policy outcomes of state and local governments (see Dye, 1979). While their findings have important implications for the distribution of public benefits according to normative criteria of fairness, the issue of equity has been largely overlooked in the empirical investigations. Nevertheless, equity and the identification of factors associated with inequity deserve attention. The extent to which citizens are treated in a discriminatory or preferential manner in violation of commonly accepted norms is an outcome that has implications for public support of governmental institutions and officials. Of equal importance, the equitable treatment of citizens by their government is itself an ultimate value which has been considered to be so important as to be enshrined in the U.S. and state constitutions.