Date of Award

2009

Degree Type

Dissertation

Department

Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs

First Advisor

Rosentraub, Mark

Subject Headings

Property tax -- Ohio, Real property tax -- Ohio, Tax incentives -- Ohio, Tax remission -- Ohio, Tax abatement, Residential, Tax incentives, Cubic regression, Equity, Neighborhood, Program evaluation, Policy analysis, Quasi-experimental design

Abstract

Using a quasi-experimental research design, this study examines the relationship between residential property tax abatement for new construction, and urban neighborhoods in four Ohio cities. Neighborhoods were defined as census tract. The purpose of this research is to determine if there is a statistically significant relationship at p < .05 between residential property tax abatement programs for new construction and several different measures of neighborhood outcomes. The neighborhood outcome measures can be grouped under the broad concepts of increased private investment, blight removal, decreased criminal activity, and property tax equity. Subsequent questions investigated are the direction of these relationships and the existence of a threshold level at which point relationships become significant. The utilization of a comparable comparison group addresses the counterfactual scenario. Independence of samples tests and multivariate cubic regression are employed to answer the research questions. Results indicate that there are no discernable effects between residential property tax abatement and the indicators of neighborhood change as defined in the study. Second, there appears to be no threshold at which the number of tax abated residential units becomes significantly associated with the indicators of neighborhood change. Third, there were no significant differences on the indicators of neighborhood change between subject and comparison groups. In essence, there are no effects from residential tax abatement policy seen at the neighborhood level

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