In the grip of Whitehall? The effects of party control on local fiscal policy in England

Abstract

This paper uses an instrumental variable approach based on close elections to evaluate the effects of political parties on local fiscal policy in England from 1998 to 2015. Our main finding is that when we condition on the central government grant, political control of the council by Labour or Conservative parties has no effect on total service expenditure, the composition of that expenditure, and the property tax rate (council tax per band D property). We find the same null results for capital expenditure, debt, and authorized debt limits. Using data on the distribution of income within local authorities, we find no evidence that this null result is being driven by homogeneous electorates rather than fiscal constraints. Thus, our results confirm the widely expressed belief that centrally imposed constraints on local government fiscal policy (rate-capping, and more recently, compulsory referenda, and the Prudential Code for borrowing) hold local government fiscal policy in a tight grip.