In general I agree with this. However, I am also in favor of government subsidy on moving between jurisdictions (though, not a full subsidy, as that would cause moral hazard problems). Uprooting your life and relocating to a new location is costly, in time, money, effort, and social ties. These costs will be disproportionately borne by people with values far from the mean of their cultural/geographic locale. Without a subsidy to help Texans with California values and Californians with Texan values relocate, Federalism will essentially develve into a large welfare redistribution to individuals with values close to their jurisdiction’s mean from individuals further from that mean.
Federalism will essentially develve into a large welfare redistribution to individuals with values close to their jurisdiction’s mean from individuals further from that mean.
The biggest problem is not moving costs but a form of adverse selection: suppose Texas values are more conductive to running a prosperous state than California values. The you will wind up with people from California moving to Texas for economic reasons but keeping their original values.
If we were to decide that local homogeneity of values is something we wanted to encourage—which I’m not sure of—a subsidy for moving costs would probably help, but I don’t think it’s sufficient to overcome the inertia that keeps e.g. Texans with Californian values in Texas. People have lots of ties to a place besides the purely financial: moving implies leaving friends and often family, finding a new job and new housing, probably learning a certain amount of new cultural content, etc.
In general I agree with this. However, I am also in favor of government subsidy on moving between jurisdictions (though, not a full subsidy, as that would cause moral hazard problems). Uprooting your life and relocating to a new location is costly, in time, money, effort, and social ties. These costs will be disproportionately borne by people with values far from the mean of their cultural/geographic locale. Without a subsidy to help Texans with California values and Californians with Texan values relocate, Federalism will essentially develve into a large welfare redistribution to individuals with values close to their jurisdiction’s mean from individuals further from that mean.
The biggest problem is not moving costs but a form of adverse selection: suppose Texas values are more conductive to running a prosperous state than California values. The you will wind up with people from California moving to Texas for economic reasons but keeping their original values.
Why should Californians pay more to support people from Texas, than say support Nigerians with bed nets?
If we were to decide that local homogeneity of values is something we wanted to encourage—which I’m not sure of—a subsidy for moving costs would probably help, but I don’t think it’s sufficient to overcome the inertia that keeps e.g. Texans with Californian values in Texas. People have lots of ties to a place besides the purely financial: moving implies leaving friends and often family, finding a new job and new housing, probably learning a certain amount of new cultural content, etc.
I wouldn’t expect such a subsidy to overcome inertia in all cases. I expect it would help on the margins, though.