Fiscally Standardized America

Description of Project:

Local governments in the United States provide many important services, from education to public safety to transportation. But it is difficult for social scientists to conduct large-scale studies of local government activity, because the exact responsibilities assigned to different levels of local government vary from state to state. In New England, for example, virtually all local government services are provided by town governments, whereas in Michigan some are provided by counties, some by cities, and some by townships. This project seeks to create a standardized database that aggregates local government spending at all levels, so that local government spending can be meaningfully studied across the entire country.

Description of work for research assistants:

The most challenging type of local government to get accurate data on are special districts, single-purpose government entities that have no consistent boundaries. These include everything from rural fire protection districts, to public utilities, to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which has an annual budget of $9.3 million. We are seeing one or more SURO students to help us research the largest special districts, so that we can determine their physical footprint. This will primarily involve internet research, and can also involve some coding in R if that is of interest.

Average hours per week: 3+, though ideally at least 5

Range of credit hours: 1-3 (or more if that's allowed is fine too)

Number of positions: 2

Supervising faculty: Robert Manduca

Supervising graduate student: Chalem Bolton

Contact info: rmanduca@umich.edu