Whatever floats your vote: understanding voter support for public port infrastructure investments

Ports are a cornerstone of the local, state, and national economy, especially for coastal cities. However, ports face growing economic challenges that require infrastructure financing, and a relevant avenue of securing funds is through government assistance via bond issues. We examine voter support for the public financing of port infrastructure investments using a 2016 referendum in Rhode Island. Through our multiple regression voting model, we find strong evidence that public spending on ports in Rhode Island was more of a bipartisan issue compared to other public financing efforts on the ballot. Additionally, neighborhoods with a larger minority presence and those with higher median per capita income were more likely to support port development. In contrast, areas with a higher homeowner population and those communities farther from ports were less likely to support port spending. As a key novelty to our paper, we use our voting model results to forecast how a hypothetical port infrastructure bond might fare in other states, and find that regardless of socioeconomic and political differences, all coastal states in the US would be expected to pass a port referendum.

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.1080/03088839.2020.1754478
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/oclc/2899960
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group 2020. Abstract reprinted with permission of Taylor & Francis.
• Authors:
  • VanCeylon, Jarron
  • Lang, Corey
  • Becker, Austin
• Publication Date: 2020-11

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: References;
• Pagination: pp 969-984
• Serial:
  • Maritime Policy & Management
  • Volume: 47
  • Issue Number: 8
  • Publisher: Taylor & Francis
  • ISSN: 0308-8839
  • EISSN: 1464-5254
  • Serial URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tmpm20

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bonds; Financing; Forecasting; Infrastructure; Investments; Multiple regression analysis; Ports; Public opinion
• Geographic Terms: Rhode Island
• Subject Areas: Marine Transportation; Policy; Society; Terminals and Facilities;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01760420
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Dec 21 2020 10:02AM