Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Essays On State Lottery Demand And Revenue Earmarks, Kara Diane Smith Mitchell

Doctoral Dissertations

Since the first modern state-sponsored lottery was instituted in New Hampshire in 1964, lotteries have proliferated to 42 states and the District of Colombia. With little exception, research has shown that these lotteries are a highly regressive form of taxation. However, this body of research does not take into account a theoretical finding that the manner in which collected funds are earmarked impacts participation patterns. The goal of this dissertation is to test this finding empirically.

In the first analysis, I use sales data from the Tennessee Education Lottery and scholarship data from the TEL Scholarship program to test this …