The Median Voter According to GARP

Abstract

This paper adapts the generalized axiom of revealed preference (GARP) empirical method to the public goods problem to test whether observed municipal public spending can be explained “as if” the city governments maximize the utility of the median income voter. It applies the test procedure for medium‐size municipal governments in five Midwest states. The data are consistent with GARP and reveal that the local governments in the sample behave as if they maximize median voter utility once we control for the state‐specific effects, government management structure, and population density.

Modeling Politics with Economics tools: A Critical Survey of the Literature

“…For a formally more rigorous and elegant version of the Downsian model, see, for instance,Shubik (1968) andDavis, Hinich and Ordeshook (1970); for a formal proof of the medianvoter theorem, seeBlack (1958) and alsoOrdcshook (1986); and for empirical studies evaluating whether policies are indeed aimed at achieving the median voter's policy optimum, seeRomer and Rosenthal (1979) for a survey, as well asGramlich and Rubinfeld (1982), Pommerehne (1978), and, more recently,Turnbull and Chang (1998). Results are generally supportive of the median-voter theorem.28 The numbers approximate "ideology" and can be thought of as one hundred times the value of the share of private sector output in total economic output.…”