A pandemonium of confusions: Kay and Marsh on Tiebout

New Political Economy

Volumn 13, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 335-348

  Dowding, Keith ^a  

^a AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ECONOMIC THEORY; THEORETICAL STUDY;

EID: 52049115929     PISSN: 13563467     EISSN: 14699923     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13563460802302610     Document Type: Article

References (65)

1. Adrian Kay & Alex Marsh, 'The Methodology of the Public Choice Research Programme: The Case of "Voting With Feet"', New Political Economy Vol. 12, No. 2 (2007), pp. 167-83. In keeping with Kay and Marsh I use the term 'model' somewhat casually throughout this comment.
2. Popper himself discusses the 'Popper Legend' in his 'Replies to My Critics', in Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Karl Popper Vol. 2 (Southern Illinois University, 1974), pp. 963-74. Popper blames the positivists from Carnap down for much of the misunderstanding - for refusing to believe his approach was so radically different - but Popper especially reserves his ire toward Imre Lakatos: 'his [Lakatos'] examination of my views seems to have left him - and, unfortunately, large numbers of people who have read his papers with an interpretation of my theory of falsifiability that makes nonsense of all my views.' 'Replies to my Critics', p. 1000.
3. Stated explicitly in Karl R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Hutchinson, 1977), p. 86, and expanded slightly in his 'Replies to my Critics', pp. 1021, 1035.
4. See also, for example, Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, 5th edn (Routledge, 1989), pp. 234-36,
5. and Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography (Routledge, 1974), pp. 42-4.
6. See The Logic of Scientific Discovery, pp. 59-60, 84-6. He uses hypothesis and theory interchangeably, but also hypothesis and prediction interchangeably (a prediction is the effect, the initial conditions the cause, but initial conditions together with universal statements ('theories') give us hypotheses. He also says predictions are derived from theories (p. 33). A theory does not have to be formalised, and certainly he considers that we have folk theories, that still deserve the name 'theory' and that from birth we observe the world theoretically (pp. 39, 423).
7. See also Karl Popper, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (Clarendon Press, 1972), ch. 7. There is no such thing as theory-free observation (see footnote 6 below).
8. He discusses this in many places, but it is most succinctly and explicitly discussed in Conjectures and Refutations, pp. 217-20, 385-7.
9. Popper's 'solution' to the problem of induction is that there is no solution, and hence we do not, as a matter of fact, use induction. Rather, he argues, we always have theories about the way the world is, and they are corroborated or falsified as we observe the world. Thus we have a theory about the sun rising each morning, corroborated as it rises each morning and falsified when it does not (for example in the Artic Winter). Sophisticated theories will tell us why the sun does not rise each morning in the Artic and Antartic Winters, but does everywhere else. See The Logic of Scientific Discovery, pp. 27-30, 40
10. Objective Knowledge, pp. 1-31
11. 'Replies to my Critics', pp. 1013-47
12. and W.W. Bartley III (ed.), Realism and the Aim of Science (Routledge, 1983), pp. 11-158, 301-46. Note here that his dismissal of induction as a means of generating theories entails that there are no non-theoretical observations. Popper is often described as a positivist. He is not. Positivists believe in non-theoretical observations, but more specifically his unusual line on induction makes him one of the positivists' most trenchant critics. (Popper has even described himself as a 'negativist' - Conjectures and Refutations, p. 229.)
13. This is known as 'Hempel's paradox' or the 'confirmation paradox' (Carl Hempel, 'A Purely Syntactical Definition of Confirmation', Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 8 No. 4 (1943), pp. 122-43. Popper sees this as a major reason for preferring his approach; Bayesian inference does not suffer from Hempel's paradox.
14. Does a theory that is more general but less falsifiable have more or less content than a less general one which is more falsifiable? According to Popper, it has less content. So an unfalsifiable theory about all human behaviour is less general than a falsifiable one purporting to explain only geographical mobility (in which case the latter could not be derived from the more general one). More general theories only have more empirical content if they are more falsifiable. In fact Popper only discusses (as far as I can see) more general theories in relation to less general ones, when the former include the latter as special cases. He says we can only compare by subclass relations, for example. The Logic of Scientific Discovery, p. 269.
15. For example, Unended Quest, p. 100
16. 'Replies to my Critics', p. 1013.
17. See also Objective Knowledge, ch. 1.
18. See Addenda 1-3 in Conjectures and Refutations, pp. 385-96
19. also Realism and the Aim of Science, pp. 217-55.
20. See, for example, Conjectures and Refutations, pp. 192-3
21. and Realism and the Aim of Science, pp. 223-7.
22. He later gave up verisimilitude, but this does leave problems for his account.
23. In the first edition of The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Popper explicitly states that only 'auxiliary hypotheses' that increase falsifiability should be allowed (pp. 82-3).
24. See also Conjectures and Refutations, pp. 57-9
25. 'Replies to my Critics', pp. 1004-9.
26. How many examples can we choose of theories that produce new predictions from other methodologies in the social sciences?
27. Kay and Marsh repeat a claim that you cannot falsify a single hypothesis because hypotheses are selfsupporting, and they refer to Quine to add some credence to the argument. (Quine is another philosopher that is often referred to though seemingly not often read.) Strangely, however, they seem to think fiscal mobility has been refuted, which seems inconsistent with this claim. However, they are saved. The Quinean point is an issue about meaning, and about when we alter the meaning of one theoretical concept, because of empirical evidence, other theoretical concepts become altered. (Indeterminacy of translation applies to analytic concepts and not 'stimulus meaning' of observational sentences.) Changing one concept reverberates through the web of other concepts affecting all hypotheses involving those concepts (Willard van Orman Quine, Word and Object (MIT Press, 1960)
28. see also Quine, 'In Praise of Observation Sentences', Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 90, No. 3 (1993), pp. 107-16). Quine would not have any problem with the idea that if you find no evidence of fiscal mobility in any regressions, you can jettison the hypothesis that people do not geographically respond to fiscal factors.
29. This is the Quinean point made dirty.
30. See the recent symposium 'Why Political Science is Not Scientific Enough', European Political Science, Vol. 6, No. 2 (2007), pp. 111-55.
31. Keith Dowding, Peter John & Stephen Biggs, 'Tiebout: A Survey of the Empirical Literature', Urban Studies, Vol. 31, Nos. 4-5 (1994), p. 787,
32. criticised by Kay & Marsh, 'The Methodology of the Public Choice Research Programme', p. 179. The array of evidence is summarised directly after the quotation.
33. There is another, somewhat petty rejoinder: That for a Popperian all conclusions are disputable - a fundamental element of his epistemology. Nothing is known for certain.
34. Kay & Marsh, 'The Methodology of the Public Choice Research Programme', p. 180.
35. See endnote 3.
36. See, for example, Popper, Objective Knowledge, p. 260.
37. Paul A. Samuelson, 'The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure', Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 36, No. 4 (1954), pp. 387-9.
38. We should note that, strictly speaking, the 'Tiebout model' is not a formal model, but rather a framework. It has been formalised in different ways. Indeed, some attempts to formalise it suggest that it is falsified on theoretical grounds. For example, estimating the ideal city size (a model developed from Tiebout) has been shown to be impossible. SeeAnthony B. Atkinson & Joseph E. Stiglitz, Lectures on Public Economics (McGraw-Hill, 1980).
39. Peter H. Rossi, Why Families Move (Sage, 1980).
40. Kay & Marsh, 'The Methodology of the Public Choice Research Programme', p. 180.
41. Dowding et al., 'Tiebout: A Survey'.
42. This led to Peter John, Keith Dowding & Stephen Biggs, 'Residential Mobility in London: A Micro-Level Test of the Behavioural Assumptions of the Tiebout Model', British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 25, No. 3 (1995), pp. 379-97,
43. and Keith Dowding & Peter John 'Exiting Behavior under Tiebout Conditions: Towards a Predictive Model', Public Choice, Vol. 88, Nos. 3-4 (1996), pp. 393-406.
44. The 10 per cent figure Kay and Marsh mention, which is given in Paul Teske, Mark Schneider, Michael Mintrom & Samuel Best, 'Establishing the Microfoundations of a Macro Theory: Information, Movers, and the Competitive Market for Public Goods', American Political Science Review, Vol. 87, No. 3 (1993), pp. 702-13, turns out in inspection of the articles in their footnotes to be pure speculation.
45. In conversation with academics researching geographical mobility, Peter John and I have found they are interested in the evidence for fiscal factors playing a role. Rather than thinking their work falsifies Tiebout, they believe they ought to include such possibilities in their models.
46. Kay and Marsh quote that 'validating the Tiebout model requires demonstrating a motivational link between tax-services packages and household movement'. It is true that a 'motivational link' is necessary, but the implication here is that it must be a conscious one. That I no longer think necessary. See Keith Dowding, 'Defensa de la Preferencia Revelada', Revista Internacional de Sociología, Vol. 49, No. 1 (2008), pp. 9-31, for some arguments to that effect.
47. Keith Dowding & Thanos Mergoupis, 'Fragmentation, Fiscal Mobility and Efficiency', Journal of Politics, Vol. 61, No. 4 (2003), pp. 1190-207. This project, designed with Peter John, extended the earlier one by looking for fiscal mobility in less favourable conditions than we studied in London. We found fiscal mobility, but at much lower levels.
48. Kay & Marsh, 'The Methodology of the Public Choice Research Programme', p. 173.
49. Tiebout can be thought of as having three parts: (a) the preference revelation part (the demand side); (b) the competition among local authorities (the supply side); and (c) the combination of the two, leading to superior allocation outcomes (the equilibrium side). Tiebout has been associated more with the demand side, but Dowding & Mergoupis were the first to bring these three parts together. See Dowding & Mergoupis, 'Fragmentation Fiscal Mobility and Efficiency'.
50. See for example, Joseph Stiglitz, 'The Contribution of the Economics of Information to Twentieth Century Economics', Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 115, No. 4 (2000), pp. 1414-78.
51. See Brian Barry, Political Argument (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990[1965]), pp. 323-5 for a good critique the abuse of the concept of efficiency, or, more recently,
52. Keith Dowding & Andrew Hindmoor, 'The Usual Suspects: Rational Choice, Socialism and Political Theory', New Political Economy, Vol. 2, No. 3 (1997), pp. 451-63. Strictly speaking redistribution could be efficient if the rich desired it.
53. Keith Dowding, 'Public Choice and Local Governance', in Desmond King & Gerry Stoker (eds), Rethinking Local Democracy (Macmillan, 1996), pp. 91-116.
54. It is for that reason that James Buchanan recommends the Tiebout world. James M. Buchanan, 'An Economic Theory of Clubs', Economica, Vol. 32, No. 1 (1965), pp. 1-14
55. James M. Buchanan & C. J. Goetz, 'Effi- ciency Limits on Fiscal Mobility: An Assessment of the Tiebout Model', Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1972), pp. 25-43.
56. Not many people think fiscal mobility should be the only mechanism guiding the allocation of local public service expenditure. The main reason for the interest in fiscal mobility is whether it can improve allocation, conditional upon the already existing mechanisms. In the UK there are at least three other important mechanisms: (a) local elections; (b) central government planning; and (c) local government bidding to central government. The interest in Tiebout is therefore maintained by the fact that we do not know how well fiscal mobility interacts with other allocation mechanisms (hence also the interest in exit and voice).
57. I think the clearest discussion of the hard core and protective belt appears in Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programme: Philosophical Papers, Vol. 1,
58. edited by John Worral and Gregory Currie (Cambridge University Press, 1978), especially pp. 48-52. We should note that Lakatos is not as original he thought. Popper discusses the problems of falsifiability long before Lakatos, calling 'auxiliary hypotheses' 'initial conditions'.
59. See for example, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, pp. 42, 82-4. Popper's view Lakatos is clear: He has 'misunderstood my theory of science' and his articles on them are 'unreliable and misleading' (Popper, 'Replies to my Critics', p. 999). Again, 'It would not have been difficult for Professor Lakatos to find out whether he was right in his various historical and interpretative speculations: He could have asked me. For while he was working on these papers, we were both at the London School of Economics. For many years he attended my lectures and seminars, at which criticism was invited as a matter of course; and I made myself regularly available for him to discuss - if he so wished - any problems or criticisms that he might have.
60. When Professor Lakatos was writing⋯ ['Criticism and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. 69 (1968-69), pp. 149-186 - a forerunner of Part 1 I refer to above] ⋯ he asked that I should "never" read this paper, and I have complied with his wish; since then I have only read passages of his work to which my attention was especially drawn, either by some students or colleagues of mine.' ('Replies to my Critics', p. 999).
61. It would not challenge the rationality assumption or utility maximisation. The economics of information has already brought into question the applicability of the fundamental theorems of welfare economics. However, those conclusions have long been understood as requiring specific context and interpretation, as brief perusal of any welfare economics textbook reveals. Furthermore, problems bedevilling 'utility' as a maxim and also bedevil the alternatives. See Keith Dowding, 'What is Welfare and How Might it be Measured?', in Don Ross & Harold Kincaid (eds), Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Economics (Oxford University Press, 2008, forthcoming).
62. A more careful analysis of a set of (somewhat different) theories and approaches in contained in Joshua Sapotichne, Bryan D. Jones & Michelle Wolfe, 'Is Urban Politics a Black Hole? Analysing the Boundary between Political Science and Urban Politics', Urban Affairs Review, Vol. 43, No. 1 (2007), pp. 76-106.
63. Keith Dowding, 'Explaining Urban Regimes', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 25, No. 1 (2001), pp. 7-19, argues that the regime concept has become abused from its original explanatory origins. Similarly I have suggested policy networks need to be handled carefully if they are to do any explanatory work.
64. Keith Dowding, 'Model or Metaphor? A Critical Review of the Policy Network Approach', Political Studies, Vol. 43, No. 1 (1995), pp. 136-58.
65. Kay & Marsh, 'The Methodology of the Public Choice Research Programme', p. 176.