The methodology of the public choice research programme: The case of 'voting with feet'

In the half century since ‘A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures’ was published, as a contribution to the debate over the efficient provision of public goods, the paper has become a mainstay of the public choice approach to public finance. The core of Charles Tiebout’s argument – that near optimal provision and allocation of local public goods can result from consumers’ making locational choices between competing local jurisdictions offering different tax-service bundles – is a discernible strand in many discussions of local fiscal arrangements and the structure of local government. There is a voluminous literature devoted to testing, critiquing, defending and refining the Tiebout model. For example, a decade ago Keith Dowding, Peter John and Stephen Briggs were able to review some 200 empirical studies that had sought to test for Tiebout effects.