Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Despite the rapid growth of special purpose governments over the past seven decades in the United States and their prevalence in American local governance, surprisingly, we still know less about their impacts. While there have been attempts to examine their efficiency, most existing studies have only looked at their costs, not their benefits. This study fills this gap in the literature by quantifying the benefits of special purpose governments. In particular, it estimates the impacts of their formation on the change in residential property values that are immediately inside and outside the district boundary. Three special districts in Los Angeles County are analyzed. The second part of the paper will quantify direct service output and input measures. Quantifying these will allow us a cost-benefit analysis to evaluate which local governance between special purpose and general purpose provides more efficient services to the citizen.