Urban sprawl and economic competition: Explaining governments' adoption and the effectiveness of urban growth management policy

This research considers the likelihood of adoption of and the effectiveness of growth management policy. First, I consider the likelihood that states adopt growth management policies. To conduct this research, I employ the policy diffusion model and add to the economic competition component of this model. I argue that the relative severity of a policy problem influences policy adoption among competing governments. In other words, states remain competitive with other states by adopting a policy when its policy problems are worse or similar to competitor states. This expectation is supported. I find that the higher the relative policy severity the higher the likelihood of policy adoption. Secondly. I examine how institutional structure influences policy outcomes. Here I consider the role of two institutional components: decision-making autonomy and policy-making costs of metropolitan governments. First, I expect that more autonomy at the metropolitan level will result in more effective policy outcomes. Second! I expect that metropolitan areas that receive more state aid will have more effective policy outcomes. Finally, I suggest that a conditional relationship exists between autonomy and transaction costs. More specifically, I contend that transaction costs increase, as a result of increasing autonomy. Metropolitan areas with more autonomy will likely receive less financial assistance, thereby increasing the metropolitan area's cost of implementing a policy. I find that, separately, state aid and autonomy have a significant affect on growth management outcomes. Metropolitan areas that receive state aid have more effective policy outcomes and less autonomous metropolitan areas have less effective policy outcomes. I do not find a conditional relationship between transaction costs and autonomy