THE IMPORTANCE OF DEMOGRAPHIC-ANALYSES IN STATE-LEVEL AND LOCAL-LEVELPOLICY EVALUATIONS - A CASE-STUDY ANALYSIS OF PROPERTY TAXES IN TEXAS, USA

The reluctance of policy-makers to incorporate detailed demographic an alyses in policy analyses often means that population composition is i gnored in state and local policy evaluations. This article uses standa rd demographic projection, standardization and rate decomposition tech niques to examine the implications of changing population composition for the property tax revenue base of Texas. The authors find that if c urrent socioeconomic differentials persist into the future, projected compositional changes in the household population of Texas will signif icantly impact property tax revenues. Thus revenue projections based o n aggregate growth and current average property value would seriously overestimate future property tax revenues in Texas because changes in the composition of the population lead to disproportionate growth in h ouseholds likely to live in lower valued housing unite. The results in dicate that the continuing focus of state and local policy-makers on c hanges in population size alone may be ill-advised and demonstrate the increasing importance of local- and state-level demographic analysis in a period of increasing Federal devolution of service provision.