A comparative analysis of the output measures of local public services

Summary and conclusion This study examines the robustness of the expenditure levels specification of the local government services. An alternative benefit specification is developed in which the expenditure levels of the education services and public safety provisions are replaced by the "benefits" of these services. Comparison of the regression results of these alternative specifications indicates that the output specification of the local services yields unexpected signs on the coefficients of some of the services. However, the coefficient on the effective tax rate in the output regression is very similar to that in the expenditure one.