Mimicking of Local Tax Burdens Among Neighboring Counties

This article contributes to the small literature on the determination of local taxes by testing hypotheses about whether local officials consider the tax burdens of neigh boring counties when making their own decisions about taxes on residents. Based on data for large U.S. counties, evidence of tax mimicking appears first in compar isons of the degree of clustering of tax burdens among neighboring counties within metropolitan areas to that among nonneighboring counties within states. In addition, regression equations based on both 1978 and 1985 data confirm the presence of tax mimicking for total local tax burdens and for property tax burdens, but not for sales tax burdens.