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Article
How does municipal policy affect state and local actions? Evidence from land conservation spending
Environmental and Natural Resource Economics Faculty Publications
  • Corey Lang, University of Rhode Island
  • Patrick Prendergast, University of Rhode Island
  • Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz, University of Rhode Island
Document Type
Article
Date of Original Version
1-1-2018
Abstract

Understanding responses to government action is critical for developing efficient policy. In the context of land conservation, this paper examines whether municipal policy has a crowding-in or crowding-out effect on neighboring municipalities’ actions and state government actions. Importantly, we focus on municipal conservation referendums, which allow us to use a regression discontinuity framework for causal inference. Using data from Massachusetts and New Jersey, our findings suggest municipal conservation decisions have no effect on neighboring local governments’ or the state’s conservation activity.

Citation Information

Lang, C., Prendergast, P., & Pearson-Merkowitz, S. (2018). How does municipal policy affect state and local actions? Evidence from land conservation spending. Resource and Energy Economics, 54, 23-36. doi: 10.1016/j.reseneeco.2018.06.001

Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.reseneeco.2018.06.001