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Abstract
In 2012 the City of Chicago sought to raise revenue by increasing compliance with the City’s Wheel Tax Program. City leaders believed the most equitable way to pursue this objective would be by slightly increasing the price of the tax, nearly doubling the penalty for noncompliance, and increasing strategic enforcement. Other studies have examined Chicago’s ticketing practices around the time and determined the City’s actions disproportionately impacted low-income and minority residents. Though these studies raise many concerns regarding the outcomes of ticketing practices, they are less conclusive on the originators themselves.
This paper seeks to explore differences in enforcement between units that would constitute inequitable policy implementation at the street-level. I utilize a difference-in-difference approach to analyze the ticketing practices of a contracted third-party ticketing unit, Serco, relative to units under the authority of the County Clerk’s Office and the Department of Finance to determine if the 2012 change led to more aggressive enforcement of the Wheel Tax Program when controlling for common transportation equity indicators. I find that areas where City of Chicago units are the primary enforcer experienced a greater increase in penalties relative to Serco, which is consistent with the prevailing literature on transportation inequity in Chicago.