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In the paper, the authors ask, "Can voters stop state governments from spending at high rates through the enactment of tax and expenditure limits (TELs), or do these laws become dead letters?" They draw upon the principal-agent literature to theorize that TELs – one of the most frequent uses of the initiative process across the country – may be circumvented by the sorts of elected officials who would inspire their passage.

In order to investigate their claim, the authors compare state fiscal patterns before and after adoption to a set of comparable states. Using this simple approach and other methods, they show that TELs are largely ineffective, and that state officials can circumvent them by raising money through fees or borrowing. Their finding is consistent with recent studies showing that policies passed through direct democracy can often be thwarted by the politicians charged with implementing them.

To read the paper, click here.

Prof. McCubbins is the Chancellor's Associates Chair VIII and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Prof. McCubbins is the author, co-author, editor or coeditor of numerous books, scientific or legal articles, chapters and other written entries. He served for eight years as a co-editor of the Journal of Law, Economics & Organization, and has served on the editorial boards of Economics and Politics and the Legislative Studies Quarterly. Presently, he serves on the Board of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies and is a co-Network Director for the Political Science Network (PSN) at SSRN.com. He is presently also a co-editor of the Journal of Legal Analysis. Prof. McCubbins has a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology.