A Capitalization Approach to Fiscal Incidence at the Local Level
提出用资本化方法分析地方公共部门的负担与收益，提供一种简单、直接、客观的计算方式，替代传统主观性强的研究方法，并比较了该方法与早期加拿大研究的结果差异。
This paper argues that an analysis of the capitalized burdens and benefits of the local public sector offers a simple, straightforward and objective computational methodology to fiscal incidence at the local level. This capitalization approach represents a major departure from the highly discretionary and imprecise computational environment of the reasonable and Aaron and McGuire approaches. It is initially discussed both from conceptual and operational points of view and then implemented using alternate procedures. Major limitations of the approach are then noted. A comparative perspective on fiscal incidence results based on the capitalization approach and of earlier studies on this subject is provided in the concluding section of the paper. During the past two decades several important studies have been published which investigate the redistributive implications of federal, provincial and local government finances in Canada. All the Canadian studies on the subject in general follow the methodology used for similar studies in the United States. These studies differ as to the shifting of tax burden assumptions and the concept of income employed, and understandably their results also vary accordingly. A common criticism of these approaches is that their conclusions depend crucially on what incidence hypothesis is chosen (Musgrave and Musgrave 1976, 394). All these studies merely illustrate what the distribution of fiscal incidence would be if the incidence assumptions were true. The numerical es