Steven Deller
Biographic Data
| ID | 279111 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Steven Deller |
| GIVEN NAMES | Steven |
| FAMILY NAME | Deller |
| SIGNATURE | DELLER S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4457-3444 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 210 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 35 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1988 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Move, Stay, and Commit: Place-based Quality of Life in the U.S
Attracting and retaining people and jobs through a high quality of life is an increasingly common community development strategy. Identifying places with high quality of life, and the factors that drive it, remain challenging. This study uses a revealed-preference framework, based on people’s observed choices and behaviors, to develop an indicator of place-based quality of life. We conceptualize quality of life as a latent variable reflected in e…
Housing financial stress and community well-being: Is there an urban-rural dimension
Multidimensional measures of quality of life: A comparison of methods using U.S. county-level data
Is there a link between access to broadband and health outcomes
There is significant evidence of the positive effects of broadband expansion on various economic outcomes, including property values and business development, with a growing literature aimed at understanding the effect on health outcomes. We contribute to this later literature exploring the effect of broadband access on underexplored health using U.S. county data. After accounting for spatial dependency within the data we find that broadband avai…
Tourism and economic resilience
The current coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has exposed the sensitivity of tourism- and hospitality-dependent regional economies to external shocks. While the negative impacts of external shocks on these economies have been widely studied, the resiliency of these tourism- and hospitality-dependent regions to recover from such shocks is less well understood. In this study, we model how dependency on tourism and hospitality activity influences re…
Regional income inequality: A link to women-owned businesses
Social capital and community development: Where do we go from here
Social capital has become a cornerstone to community development. Unfortunately, its scope of research, particularly on policy, creates more smoke than light. This essay builds on an interdisciplinary foundation for a more inclusive approach to social capital research. Though broad evidence supports Putnam’s claims on social capital, our understanding is incomplete, partly due to scholars’ focus on individual disciplinary perspectives. We summari…
Effect of farm structure on rural community well-being
Women in Law Enforcement and Police Use of Deadly Force
We test the hypothesis that law enforcement agencies that have a larger share of female officers should experience lower rates of police use of deadly force. We use the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics 2013 survey of police and sheriff departments (N = 1,983). We measure police-involved violence as the number of civilians killed by law enforcement officers from 2013 through 2015 as reported by the website Mapping Police Vi…
Broadband's relationship to rural housing values
Rural entrepreneurship and migration
Social capital, religion and small business activity
Local foods systems and community economic development
Local food system development is a popular strategy employed by many communities in the pursuit of sustainable and equitable economic growth and development. This often includes a range of economic projects including farmers markets, community supported agriculture enterprises, urban farming/agriculture projects, and food hubs. Sometimes it includes intermediated marketing channels like grocery stores and broad-line distributors interested in pro…
Food access, local foods, and community health
In this analysis, we look for patterns in the relationship between food access, local foods, and community health at the US county level. We take an ecological approach using 2012 Census of Agriculture and County Health Rankings & Roadmaps data collected by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. We address a simple question: is access to local foods activity associated with public health? Results generally support the central pr…
Motivations for a special issue on local food systems development
Increasingly, many believe that food is for much more than simple biological maintenance. Our society is replete with examples of how food symbolizes our value structures, our relationships with ea
The effects of tax and expenditure limits on state fiscal reserves
To help policy makers manage expenditures during periods of economic downturns, most states have formal budget stabilization funds and unreserved fund balances. Using indices of tax and expenditure limitations laws restrictiveness, we examine the relationship between tax and expenditure limitations and state reserves for years 1992–2010 to help determine the extent to which tax and expenditure limitations constrain or in other ways affect how sta…
Business survival rates across the urban–rural divide
Scholars and practitioners have concluded that entrepreneurship and small business development is central to community economic development. Often times community members, including elected officials, are skeptical of the importance of new and small firms due to their seemingly high failure rate. In this study we use the National Establishment Time Series (NETS) database of US establishments survival rate of new firms in each US county. For each …
Do Tax and Expenditure Limits Hinder the Condition of Public Infrastructure? The Case of the Nation’s System of Bridges
Tax and expenditure limitations (TELs) imposed on state and local governments is a popular policy approach to limit the growth in government. At the same time these limits may hinder the ability of state and local governments to provide services and make investments in public infrastructure. We test the relationship between state-level TEL restrictiveness and the United State’s network of highway bridges. We generally find that more restrictive T…
Spatial Heterogeneity, Social Capital, and Rural Larceny and Burglary
We explore the role of social capital in explaining patterns of rural larceny and burglary crime rates. We find consistent evidence that higher levels of social capital tend to be associated with lower levels of rural property crime rates. We also find that there is significant spatial heterogeneity in the underlying data-generating process. This spatial heterogeneity suggests that relying on global estimates from classical statistical methods, s…
Measuring municipal fiscal condition: Do objective measures of fiscal health relate to subjective measures
The intent of this research is determine the extent to which selfreported measures of fiscal condition are consistent with commonly identified measures of fiscal condition using secondary financial data. While the field of government finance has amassed a lengthy list of research on fiscal condition and fiscal stress assessment, there remains a gap in the research on the extent to which practitioners' perceptions of fiscal stress are consistent w…
Rural poverty, tourism and spatial heterogeneity
Alternative Methods of Service Delivery in Small and Rural Municipalities
Data from approximately 1,000 small, mostly rural municipalities in Illinois, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin address local choices on production and contracting arrangements for a wide range of services. The results suggest that the use of both for-profit contractors and cooperative agreements with other governments correlate negatively with population size. Small municipalities are less likely to use competitive bidding processes, compare costs be…
Wisconsin local government, state shared revenues and the illusive flypaper effect
Predictive models of government spending behavior based solely on the median voter theory have demonstrated limited utility, particularly when intergovernmental grants are involved. Since the 1970s, research on the impact of intergovernmental grants and aids on recipient governments has demonstrated that spending increases greater than predicted by the median voter theory, a.k.a. the “flypaper effect.” One of the challenges facing those trying to…
Rethinking Highway Effects on Population Change
Little systematic work has been undertaken to explain highway impacts on population change. In this study, the authors review the literature in regional economics and demographics in an attempt to shed light on the mechanisms by which investments in highway infrastructure influence population change. First, they categorize the indirect causal paths by which highways influence population change at the county and municipal levels. Then they propose…
A Model of Asymmetries in the Flypaper Effect
In this applied research study we examine the changing fiscal relationship between state and local governments. Our research question is simple: Do local governments treat state aid during periods of stability and instability in a systematic manner? Using data on Wisconsin's unconditional shared revenues program from 1990 to 2000, we find evidence of a flypaper effect and that the relationship tends to be asymmetrical. The manner in which local g…
Local Dependency, Land Use Attitudes, and Economic Development: Comparisons between Seasonal and Permanent Residents1
For many rural communities in the United States, tourists and retirees make a major contribution to the local economy. The role of recreational home ownership in these communities is not well understood. We examine the attitudes toward land use controls and local economic development among seasonal and permanent residents. We compare growth machine and local dependency theory explanations for support of land use controls and growth activities. Ba…
Alternative Methods of Service Delivery in Small and Rural Municipalities
Data from approximately 1,000 small, mostly rural municipalities in Illinois, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin address local choices on production and contracting arrangements for a wide range of services. The results suggest that the use of both for-profit contractors and cooperative agreements with other governments correlate negatively with population size. Small municipalities are less likely to use competitive bidding processes, compare costs be…
Rural poverty, tourism and spatial heterogeneity
Natural amenities, tourism and income distribution
Rethinking Highway Effects on Population Change
Little systematic work has been undertaken to explain highway impacts on population change. In this study, the authors review the literature in regional economics and demographics in an attempt to shed light on the mechanisms by which investments in highway infrastructure influence population change. First, they categorize the indirect causal paths by which highways influence population change at the county and municipal levels. Then they propose…
A Model of Asymmetries in the Flypaper Effect
In this applied research study we examine the changing fiscal relationship between state and local governments. Our research question is simple: Do local governments treat state aid during periods of stability and instability in a systematic manner? Using data on Wisconsin's unconditional shared revenues program from 1990 to 2000, we find evidence of a flypaper effect and that the relationship tends to be asymmetrical. The manner in which local g…
Rural entrepreneurship and migration
Spatial Heterogeneity, Social Capital, and Rural Larceny and Burglary
We explore the role of social capital in explaining patterns of rural larceny and burglary crime rates. We find consistent evidence that higher levels of social capital tend to be associated with lower levels of rural property crime rates. We also find that there is significant spatial heterogeneity in the underlying data-generating process. This spatial heterogeneity suggests that relying on global estimates from classical statistical methods, s…
Broadband's relationship to rural housing values
Social capital and community development: Where do we go from here
Social capital has become a cornerstone to community development. Unfortunately, its scope of research, particularly on policy, creates more smoke than light. This essay builds on an interdisciplinary foundation for a more inclusive approach to social capital research. Though broad evidence supports Putnam’s claims on social capital, our understanding is incomplete, partly due to scholars’ focus on individual disciplinary perspectives. We summari…
The Size Efficiency of Rural Governments: The Case of Low-Volume Rural Roads
The deterioration of the supply of public infrastructure throughout the United States has been found to be accelerating. The reason most often cited for the increasing rates of deterioration is the lack of available funding, or fiscal stress, present in many local governments. A popular short-term solution to fiscal stress is to defer infrastructure repairs and/or replacement programs. This is particularly true in rural areas where a declining ag…
Effect of farm structure on rural community well-being
The effects of tax and expenditure limits on state fiscal reserves
To help policy makers manage expenditures during periods of economic downturns, most states have formal budget stabilization funds and unreserved fund balances. Using indices of tax and expenditure limitations laws restrictiveness, we examine the relationship between tax and expenditure limitations and state reserves for years 1992–2010 to help determine the extent to which tax and expenditure limitations constrain or in other ways affect how sta…
Food access, local foods, and community health
In this analysis, we look for patterns in the relationship between food access, local foods, and community health at the US county level. We take an ecological approach using 2012 Census of Agriculture and County Health Rankings & Roadmaps data collected by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. We address a simple question: is access to local foods activity associated with public health? Results generally support the central pr…
Business survival rates across the urban–rural divide
Scholars and practitioners have concluded that entrepreneurship and small business development is central to community economic development. Often times community members, including elected officials, are skeptical of the importance of new and small firms due to their seemingly high failure rate. In this study we use the National Establishment Time Series (NETS) database of US establishments survival rate of new firms in each US county. For each …
Managerial efficiency in local government: Implications on jurisdictional consolidation
Local foods systems and community economic development
Local food system development is a popular strategy employed by many communities in the pursuit of sustainable and equitable economic growth and development. This often includes a range of economic projects including farmers markets, community supported agriculture enterprises, urban farming/agriculture projects, and food hubs. Sometimes it includes intermediated marketing channels like grocery stores and broad-line distributors interested in pro…
Recreational housing and local government finance
Representative versus direct democracy a Tiebout test of relative performance: Comment
Motivations for a special issue on local food systems development
Increasingly, many believe that food is for much more than simple biological maintenance. Our society is replete with examples of how food symbolizes our value structures, our relationships with ea
Do Tax and Expenditure Limits Hinder the Condition of Public Infrastructure? The Case of the Nation’s System of Bridges
Tax and expenditure limitations (TELs) imposed on state and local governments is a popular policy approach to limit the growth in government. At the same time these limits may hinder the ability of state and local governments to provide services and make investments in public infrastructure. We test the relationship between state-level TEL restrictiveness and the United State’s network of highway bridges. We generally find that more restrictive T…
Economies of Size and Scope in Rural Low-Volume Roads
Evidence on cost savings from reorganizing township low-volume, rural-road systems into larger units is presented in the study of technical efficiencies in producing local government services. Data are from a sample of midwestern townships. Heterogeneity of surface types is accounted for by specifying a multiple output translog cost function. Examination of economies of size suggest that cost savings could be realized by reorganizing townships in…
Representative versus direct democracy a Tiebout test of relative performance: Comment
The Size Efficiency of Rural Governments: The Case of Low-Volume Rural Roads
The deterioration of the supply of public infrastructure throughout the United States has been found to be accelerating. The reason most often cited for the increasing rates of deterioration is the lack of available funding, or fiscal stress, present in many local governments. A popular short-term solution to fiscal stress is to defer infrastructure repairs and/or replacement programs. This is particularly true in rural areas where a declining ag…
Managerial efficiency in local government: Implications on jurisdictional consolidation
Federal Aid and Rural County Highway Spending: A Review of the 1980
The Reagan/Bush Administrations cut back federal support for state and local governments during the 1980s, causing total real resources available to finance local roads and bridges to increase very slowly between 1977 and 1989. The effect of federal aid on spending for infrastructure has been subject to debate for many years. Some studies have indicated that federal aid is stimulative, while others report that federal aid substitutes for local re…
Local Dependency, Land Use Attitudes, and Economic Development: Comparisons between Seasonal and Permanent Residents1
For many rural communities in the United States, tourists and retirees make a major contribution to the local economy. The role of recreational home ownership in these communities is not well understood. We examine the attitudes toward land use controls and local economic development among seasonal and permanent residents. We compare growth machine and local dependency theory explanations for support of land use controls and growth activities. Ba…
Recreational housing and local government finance
The Status and Financing of Off-System Bridges
The network of off-system bridges supporting the rural economy has been a concern for a long time. Federal Highway Administration data show that 31.4% of the bridges off the federal aid system qualify for replacement and/or rehabilitation funds, the worst category under the federal bridge program. Although there is some evidence that the quality of these bridges has marginally improved in recent years, the sheer number of deficient bridges in rur…
The Role of Amenities and Quality of Life In Rural Economic Growth
A structural model of regional economic growth is estimated using data for 2243 rural U.S. counties. Five indices designed to capture specific amenity and quality of life characteristics are constructed using fifty‐four separate indicators. Results suggest that amenity characteristics can be organized into consistent and meaningful empirical measures that move beyond ad hoc descriptions of amenities. In addition to insights into the influence of …
Natural amenities, tourism and income distribution
A Model of Asymmetries in the Flypaper Effect
In this applied research study we examine the changing fiscal relationship between state and local governments. Our research question is simple: Do local governments treat state aid during periods of stability and instability in a systematic manner? Using data on Wisconsin's unconditional shared revenues program from 1990 to 2000, we find evidence of a flypaper effect and that the relationship tends to be asymmetrical. The manner in which local g…
Rethinking Highway Effects on Population Change
Little systematic work has been undertaken to explain highway impacts on population change. In this study, the authors review the literature in regional economics and demographics in an attempt to shed light on the mechanisms by which investments in highway infrastructure influence population change. First, they categorize the indirect causal paths by which highways influence population change at the county and municipal levels. Then they propose…
Wisconsin local government, state shared revenues and the illusive flypaper effect
Predictive models of government spending behavior based solely on the median voter theory have demonstrated limited utility, particularly when intergovernmental grants are involved. Since the 1970s, research on the impact of intergovernmental grants and aids on recipient governments has demonstrated that spending increases greater than predicted by the median voter theory, a.k.a. the “flypaper effect.” One of the challenges facing those trying to…
Rural poverty, tourism and spatial heterogeneity
Alternative Methods of Service Delivery in Small and Rural Municipalities
Data from approximately 1,000 small, mostly rural municipalities in Illinois, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin address local choices on production and contracting arrangements for a wide range of services. The results suggest that the use of both for-profit contractors and cooperative agreements with other governments correlate negatively with population size. Small municipalities are less likely to use competitive bidding processes, compare costs be…
Measuring municipal fiscal condition: Do objective measures of fiscal health relate to subjective measures
The intent of this research is determine the extent to which selfreported measures of fiscal condition are consistent with commonly identified measures of fiscal condition using secondary financial data. While the field of government finance has amassed a lengthy list of research on fiscal condition and fiscal stress assessment, there remains a gap in the research on the extent to which practitioners' perceptions of fiscal stress are consistent w…
Spatial Heterogeneity, Social Capital, and Rural Larceny and Burglary
We explore the role of social capital in explaining patterns of rural larceny and burglary crime rates. We find consistent evidence that higher levels of social capital tend to be associated with lower levels of rural property crime rates. We also find that there is significant spatial heterogeneity in the underlying data-generating process. This spatial heterogeneity suggests that relying on global estimates from classical statistical methods, s…
Do Tax and Expenditure Limits Hinder the Condition of Public Infrastructure? The Case of the Nation’s System of Bridges
Tax and expenditure limitations (TELs) imposed on state and local governments is a popular policy approach to limit the growth in government. At the same time these limits may hinder the ability of state and local governments to provide services and make investments in public infrastructure. We test the relationship between state-level TEL restrictiveness and the United State’s network of highway bridges. We generally find that more restrictive T…
Business survival rates across the urban–rural divide
Scholars and practitioners have concluded that entrepreneurship and small business development is central to community economic development. Often times community members, including elected officials, are skeptical of the importance of new and small firms due to their seemingly high failure rate. In this study we use the National Establishment Time Series (NETS) database of US establishments survival rate of new firms in each US county. For each …
Local foods systems and community economic development
Local food system development is a popular strategy employed by many communities in the pursuit of sustainable and equitable economic growth and development. This often includes a range of economic projects including farmers markets, community supported agriculture enterprises, urban farming/agriculture projects, and food hubs. Sometimes it includes intermediated marketing channels like grocery stores and broad-line distributors interested in pro…
Food access, local foods, and community health
In this analysis, we look for patterns in the relationship between food access, local foods, and community health at the US county level. We take an ecological approach using 2012 Census of Agriculture and County Health Rankings & Roadmaps data collected by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. We address a simple question: is access to local foods activity associated with public health? Results generally support the central pr…
Motivations for a special issue on local food systems development
Increasingly, many believe that food is for much more than simple biological maintenance. Our society is replete with examples of how food symbolizes our value structures, our relationships with ea
The effects of tax and expenditure limits on state fiscal reserves
To help policy makers manage expenditures during periods of economic downturns, most states have formal budget stabilization funds and unreserved fund balances. Using indices of tax and expenditure limitations laws restrictiveness, we examine the relationship between tax and expenditure limitations and state reserves for years 1992–2010 to help determine the extent to which tax and expenditure limitations constrain or in other ways affect how sta…
Social capital, religion and small business activity
Women in Law Enforcement and Police Use of Deadly Force
We test the hypothesis that law enforcement agencies that have a larger share of female officers should experience lower rates of police use of deadly force. We use the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics 2013 survey of police and sheriff departments (N = 1,983). We measure police-involved violence as the number of civilians killed by law enforcement officers from 2013 through 2015 as reported by the website Mapping Police Vi…
Economics (27 works) · Political science (19 works) · Business (17 works) · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth (12 works) · Geography (12 works) · Economic growth (10 works) · Finance (10 works) · Public economics (8 works) · Macroeconomics (7 works) · Regional Economics and Spatial Analysis (7 works)