Three Essays in Public Finance
Three Essays in Public Finance

Author: Shiyuan Chen

Publisher: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 142

ISBN-13: 9783838304359

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This dissertation comprises three essays in public finance. The first essay is a research of a theory of trading of club goods and its application to jurisdiction. The essay establishes a model of trading of club goods among clubs, and illustrates its effects on the process and outcome of club formation. Cost function as well as disutility of crowdedness is emphasized and integrated into the process of club formation, after allowing for exchanging club good among clubs. In the process, the essay develops a market for club goods. Then the model is revised and applied to the formation of jurisdictions. The second essay comes out of an interest regarding household demand, poverty and public goods in developing countries. The essay explores household food consumption in Jamaica and estimates the effects of related variables. With Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions 2001 data, the essay estimates an Engel curve which reflects the relation between household food consumption and related variables. What's more, to investigate the possible neighborhood effect on food consumption, the essay tests and estimates the spatial correlation among neighborhood food consumption. The estimated results can be applied to poverty reduction policy. The third essay extends the theme of poverty, consumption, and government programs by analyzing one other public program--education. Education is closely linked to poverty alleviation. Determining the demand for education and the return to education will help government focus programs aimed at reducing drop-out rates and in the long run, poverty in the country. The essay applies discrete time survival analysis techniques to analyze education duration in Jamaica. Based on Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions 2002, the essay estimates the effects of household, individual and other related covariates on dropout risks of students. The essay compares discrete time Cox model and discrete time logit model and concludes that the two estimations are consistent. The estimation results could be used to predict the effects of changes in the covariates, or be used to predict the dropout risks of particular students in each grade, both of which could provide useful policy implications to improve education in Jamaica.

Three Essays in Political Economy and Public Finance
Three Essays in Political Economy and Public Finance

Author: Ugo A. Troiano

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Chapter 1 evaluates the effect of relaxing fiscal rules on policy outcomes applying a quasi-experimental research design. We implement a "difference-in-discontinuities" design by combining the before/after with the discontinuous policy variation generated by the implementation of the Domestic Stability Pact on Italian municipalities between 1999 and 2004. Our estimates show that relaxing fiscal rules triggers a substantial deficit bias, captured by a shift from a balanced budget to a deficit that amounts to 2 percent of the total budget. The deficit comes primarily from reduced revenues as unconstrained municipalities have lower real estate and income tax rates.

Three Essays in Local Public Finance
Three Essays in Local Public Finance

Author: Ross Teichert Milton

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13:

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This dissertation studies local government taxation. I study whether changes in local tax levels impact alternative sources of revenue, how tax changes to fund school facilities affect property values, and how tax limits should be set to maximize the welfare of voters. In the first essay, I study private donations to public school districts, which while primarily publicly funded government entities, most districts receive. I estimate how local school taxes crowd out private, voluntary contributions to public education. To do this, I exploit quasi-experimental variation in tax revenue stemming from local elections. I collect data from a large set of referenda in which local taxes face voter approval in four Midwestern states, combined with administrative records of the sources of school district revenues. Using a regression discontinuity design around voting thresholds that determine passage of local referenda, I show that private contributions to public school systems are not crowded out by local taxes. The second essay uses variation in school facilities from local elections to approve capital investment to study whether improved school facilities change the property values of homes in Ohio. These elections allow me to use a regression discontinuity design around the voting threshold that allows school boards to issue bonds. I find no evidence that that is the case in Ohio, in contrast to other researcher's work in California. The third essay, which is joint work with Stephen Coate, studies the optimal design of fiscal limits, a common feature in local public finance, in the context of a simple political economy model. The model features a single politician and a representative voter. The politician is responsible for choosing the level of taxation for the voter but is biased in favor of higher taxes. The voter sets a tax limit before his/her preferred level of taxation is fully known. The novel feature of the model is that the limit can be overridden, with the voter's approval. The paper solves for the optimal limit and explores how it depends upon the degree of politician bias and the nature of the uncertainty concerning the voter's preferred level of taxation. ...

Three Essays in Public Finance
Three Essays in Public Finance

Author: Patrick Maurice Walsh

Publisher:

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9780542791154

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A primary explanation for sub-optimal worker-job matches is a prospective worker's imperfect information about his or her own skills. College classes in specific fields are thought to reveal new information about specific skills, potentially improving match quality. This paper tests that theory by asking whether grades in a specific field can help a student predict labor-market outcomes in that field. Field-specific CPA significantly predicts employment Business, Education, Engineering, and medical fields. Field-specific CPA also significantly predicts income in Business and Education. Although grades do provide predictive power, however, they explain a modest share of overall variation in outcomes.