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- Fiscal decentralization (3)
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Articles 1 - 20 of 20
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
An Examination Of Unintended Consequences Of Intergovernmental Equalization Programs, Dmitry V. Shishkin
An Examination Of Unintended Consequences Of Intergovernmental Equalization Programs, Dmitry V. Shishkin
Economics Dissertations
While the major goal of intergovernmental equalization transfers is the pursuit of equity, there are also a number of unintended consequences produced by equalization programs. In this dissertation we analyze the negative effect of equalization on the size of factors that are either used to measure the equalized jurisdictions' fiscal capacity in gap-filling equalization programs or are taxed with the purpose of further redistribution among jurisdictions in tax base sharing programs. We propose a theoretical framework in which the comparative statics analysis shows how equalization programs can induce substitution effect in the representative individual's consumption bundle via changes in the …
Labor Market Outcomes And Welfare Participation Of Teen Mothers: Evidence From Georgia, Djesika Djatugbe Amendah
Labor Market Outcomes And Welfare Participation Of Teen Mothers: Evidence From Georgia, Djesika Djatugbe Amendah
Economics Dissertations
This dissertation explores the effect of teen childbearing on the adult mother’s employment, earnings and welfare participation. This study contributes to the literature on the consequence of teen childbearing by relying on original datasets and using an array of samples and econometric methods to test the robustness of the results. We use state administrative data from several sources including the Georgia subset of the Vital Statistics for the years 1994-2002, the Wage and Employer files for the years 1990-2003, and the Welfare dataset for the years 1990-2005. We select three samples. The first sample is constructed with sisters raised in …
Fiscal Decentralization And Public Sector Employment: A Cross-Country Analysis, Ming-Hung Yao
Fiscal Decentralization And Public Sector Employment: A Cross-Country Analysis, Ming-Hung Yao
Economics Dissertations
This dissertation seeks to investigate the relationship between public sector employment and fiscal decentralization. We develop a theoretical model that helps us understand the interaction of the central executive's and subnational governor's decisions on the level of public employees at the central and subnational levels. Our empirical work shows that fiscal decentralization policy shifts central government employees to the subnational government level and that the increase in public employees at the subnational government level overwhelms the decrease in public employees at the central level. As a result, the level of total public sector employees increases with the degree of fiscal …
Menopause Transition And Labor Market Outcomes, Mercy Mvundura
Menopause Transition And Labor Market Outcomes, Mercy Mvundura
Economics Dissertations
Over the past 50 years, women have become important participants in the labor market. With the increase in the number of middle-aged women going through the menopause transition, the question arises as to the effect of this transition on the labor market. Previous studies have shown that reproductive cycles have a non-trivial negative effect on women’s labor market outcomes. Thus, the cessation of these reproductive cycles (menopause) should bring relief for these women. However, another body of literature asserts that the menopause transition itself has a negative effect on women’s mental and physical health and so may have a negative …
Essays On Tax Evasion, Edward Batte Sennoga
Essays On Tax Evasion, Edward Batte Sennoga
Economics Dissertations
Essay one develops and tests a revenue-maximizing tax structure model. This model represents one of the first attempts to evaluate and compare the responsiveness of various tax instruments to tax evasion within a tax revenue maximization framework. We use data from both the OECD and East African countries and estimation is via a seemingly unrelated regression model. The GDP share of agricultural income is used as an instrument to correct for the simultaneity between tax revenue shares and tax evasion. Our findings indicate that tax evasion increases the tax authority’s reliance on consumption taxes vis-à-vis taxes on income, suggesting that …
Local Government Financing And Provision In An Institutionally Constrained Decentralized System: The Case Of Agricultural Extension In Uganda, Abdu Muwonge
Economics Dissertations
Decentralization is a key governance reform which many developing countries have embarked on. Local governments are expected to use their informational advantage to improve the delivery of public goods. This result implied by Tiebout’s (1956) model requires fully informed citizens who “vote with their feet.” The model’s application to developing countries has been limited, since local decisions may not be responsive to local demands. Practitioners are shifting to innovations that minimize institutional constraints so that decentralized programs can lead to improved outcomes. Examples of such innovative ways include decentralized agricultural extension programs, which embrace farmers’ empowerment, local government, and private …
Obesity And Physical Fitness In The Labor Market, Roy Wada
Obesity And Physical Fitness In The Labor Market, Roy Wada
Economics Dissertations
Mixed results have been reported when body size is used to estimate the effect of health and nutritional status on worker productivity. This dissertation offers an alternative hypothesis that body composition rather than body size is responsible for the effects of health and nutritional status on worker productivity. Body fat is responsible for the poor health associated with obesity. Lean body mass is responsible for the superior performance associated with physical fitness. Studies using body size alone cannot distinguish the combined, but opposite effects, of body fat and lean body mass. A method is provided here that overcomes the lack …
State Children's Health Insurance Program: Participation Decision And Labor Supply Effects, Kyoungwoo Lee
State Children's Health Insurance Program: Participation Decision And Labor Supply Effects, Kyoungwoo Lee
Economics Dissertations
Our study estimates the crowd-out of private health insurance following SCHIP expansions for children. We use panel data from the 2001 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). We use multivariate regression models to the crowd-out of private health insurance. This difference-in-differences approach controls for other factors that affect both the control group and treatment group, and measures the extent of crowd-out private coverage in the treatment group relative to the control group. We find that nearly 26 percent of the transitions from private coverage into SCHIP coverage were made by children who would have had private …
Essays On Tax Evasion And Government Spending In Developing Countries, Abel Berhe Embaye
Essays On Tax Evasion And Government Spending In Developing Countries, Abel Berhe Embaye
Economics Dissertations
The dissertation aims at broadening our understanding of tax evasion and government spending in developing countries. It comprises three essays. The first essay deals with estimation of tax evasion in a cross-section of developing countries by estimating their underground economies using the currency demand method. By including enforcement parameters of the tax authorities as another factor of tax evasion in the currency demand equation, it presents theory-consistent tax evasion measurement. Our estimation strategy includes the use of the Arellano-Bond dynamic panel data method that is suitable for correcting the endogeneity problem in the currency demand estimation. The study finds substantial …
School Quality, House Prices, And Liquidity: The Effects Of Public School Reform In Baton Rouge, Velma Zahirovic-Herbert
School Quality, House Prices, And Liquidity: The Effects Of Public School Reform In Baton Rouge, Velma Zahirovic-Herbert
Economics Dissertations
After a court imposed desegregation plan ended in 1996, the Baton Rouge, Louisiana school district created neighborhood attendance zones for its schools, followed by a series of attendance zone changes. We use data from 1994 to 2002 to examine the impact of changes in school characteristics on simultaneous determination of house prices and liquidity in the market. A simultaneous equations model of sales price and tine-on-market is adopted that extends the hedonic price model by controlling for localized neighborhood market conditions. Our empirical results show that improving and declining school performance can have asymmetric capitalization effects. Further, as indicated by …
Essays On The Value Of A Statistical Life, Ikuho Kochi
Essays On The Value Of A Statistical Life, Ikuho Kochi
Economics Dissertations
This dissertation addresses two important issues in the literature estimating the Value of a Statistical Life. The first issue is the potential endogeneity bias in cross-section hedonic wage models. The second issue is the transferability of the VSL between different policy contexts. To address the first issue, we estimate cross-section and panel hedonic wage models to identify the bias due to the time-invariant worker heterogeneity. We also consider potential endogeneity bias due to measurement error associated with risk variable, time-variant worker heterogeneity and simultaneity between wage and risk in panel models. We obtain labor market data from the 1996 Survey …
Finite Bargaining Problems, Hanji Wu
Finite Bargaining Problems, Hanji Wu
Economics Dissertations
Bargaining is a process to decide how to divide shared resources between two or more players. And axiomatic bargaining specifies desirable and simple properties the outcome of the bargaining should satisfy and identifies the solution that produces this outcome. This approach was first developed by John Nash in his seminal work(Nash 1950). Since then, numerous studies have been done on bargaining problems with convex feasible set or with non-convex but comprehensive feasible set. There is, however, little work on finite bargaining problems. In this dissertation, we study finite bargaining problems systematically by extending the standard bargaining model to the one …
Copycat Theory: Testing For Fiscal Policies Harmonization In The Southern African Coordinating Community (Sadc) And Sub-Saharan Africa (Ssa), Christine Ega Mbakile-Moloi
Copycat Theory: Testing For Fiscal Policies Harmonization In The Southern African Coordinating Community (Sadc) And Sub-Saharan Africa (Ssa), Christine Ega Mbakile-Moloi
Economics Dissertations
The objective of this dissertation is to test empirically whether fiscal policy mimicking exists in developing countries and whether such mimicking leads to policy harmonization. This is done by studying the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Region and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The dissertation uses panel data and applies the generalized method of moments (GMM) and the generalized spatial two-stage least squares (GS2SLS) methodologies to a spatial setting to test for the spatial interactions. The study also tests for evidence of spatial interaction in the assessment of government efficiency by voters in neighboring countries, where efficiency is measured using the price/quantity …
Essays On The Political Economy Of Taxation, Raul A. Ponce Rodriguez
Essays On The Political Economy Of Taxation, Raul A. Ponce Rodriguez
Economics Dissertations
In this dissertation we analyze the role of parties’ electoral competition in aggregating voters’ preferences over policy and its impact on tax design. The representation of voters’ interests is central for the analysis of public finance since the issue of aggregation is closely linked to the tradeoff between efficiency and redistribution, and the size and composition of public spending. Parties’ aggregation of preferences is related to the mechanism in which policy makers (parties) weigh the relative merits of competing goals of the tax system (in our analysis, redistribution versus efficiency), and reveals the welfare calculus throughout parties identify groups of …
The Impact Of Education Decentralization On Education Output: A Cross-Country Study, Eunice Heredia-Ortiz
The Impact Of Education Decentralization On Education Output: A Cross-Country Study, Eunice Heredia-Ortiz
Economics Dissertations
This dissertation examines, both theoretically and empirically, the impact of expenditure decentralization and decision-making in education on education output measured through net enrollment rates, repetition rates, dropout rates, completion rates, and test scores in science at the primary school level. We develop a theoretical model based on a behavioral production function model that investigates the potential direct effects of education decentralization on output, and indirect effects of education decentralization through its impact on family, school and teacher inputs. We develop an unbalanced panel data model of education decentralization by using various econometric estimators on a dataset of fifty-nine countries, developed …
Essays In Labor Economics: Alcohol Consumption And Socioeconomic Outcomes, Eric Mensah Sarpong
Essays In Labor Economics: Alcohol Consumption And Socioeconomic Outcomes, Eric Mensah Sarpong
Economics Dissertations
Recent studies indicate that alcohol consumption may affect economic outcomes through its effects on health capital and social capital. If, in fact, differences in economic outcomes are causally linked to differences in alcohol consumption, then lack of adequate insight into such connectivity may adversely affect the labor market and retirement outcomes of some groups of individuals in society. In two essays, this dissertation examines the impact of alcohol consumption on wealth at retirement using data from the RAND Health and Retirement Study (HRS) from 1992 through 2002; and the effects of alcohol consumption on employment duration and earnings using the …
Effects Of Transitional Policies On Labor Market Outcomes Fifteen Years After Transition: The Case Of Ukraine And Lithuania, Olga Pavlova
Effects Of Transitional Policies On Labor Market Outcomes Fifteen Years After Transition: The Case Of Ukraine And Lithuania, Olga Pavlova
Economics Dissertations
This dissertation explores how different labor market policies implemented following the transition to market system in Eastern Europe affected labor market outcomes. As the result of different policies implemented countries of Eastern Europe that were very similar at the beginning of the transition achieved different economic outcomes. We focus on Lithuania and Ukraine that represent two groups of countries with respect to the broad approach to economic transition. Our analysis explores change in gender wage gap in the two countries as well as evolution in returns to human capital. We compare labor market institutions and composition of the labor force …
Feasibility Of Proposed Monetary Unions In The Eastern And Southern Africa Region, Steven K. Buigut
Feasibility Of Proposed Monetary Unions In The Eastern And Southern Africa Region, Steven K. Buigut
Economics Dissertations
The dissertation assesses the suitability of countries in the Eastern and Southern Africa region for a monetary union. Using VAR techniques the symmetry of the underlying structural shocks is analyzed. The results indicate that supply and demand shocks are generally asymmetric, which does not lend strong support for forming a region-wide currency union at the moment. Although economic shocks are not highly correlated across the entire region, we tentatively identify three sub-regional clusters of countries that may benefit from a currency union. We find some tentative evidence that some, though not all, sub-regions may benefit from a link to the …
Essays On Ricardian Equivalence, Artidiatun Adji
Essays On Ricardian Equivalence, Artidiatun Adji
Economics Dissertations
The theme of this dissertation is Ricardian equivalence, and its objective is to examine the effects of government debt on private consumption expenditures (Essay One), on interest rates (Essay Two), on the current account balance (Essay Three), and on individual intertemporal decision-making (Essay Four). The effects of government debt are important if debt is neutral (e.g., if “Ricardian equivalence” holds), then a stabilization program that is based on demand management policy to curtail fiscal deficits will not be operative. On the other hand, if debt is not neutral (or if Ricardian equivalence does not hold), then deficit finance may induce …
Fiscal Decentralization And Poverty Reduction Outcomes: Theory And Evidence, Guevera Assamoi Yao
Fiscal Decentralization And Poverty Reduction Outcomes: Theory And Evidence, Guevera Assamoi Yao
Economics Dissertations
This dissertation examines the effect of fiscal decentralization on poverty reduction and explores potential transmission channels through pro-poor sectoral outcomes such as basic education, basic healthcare and agricultural productivity. We first develop a theoretical model to explain the interaction between decentralization and poverty reduction outcomes. In particular, we show that the marginal effect of fiscal decentralization on pro-poor sectors depends largely on the outcome of the trade-off between potential benefits derived from better matching of local preference due to local proximity, and the lack of technical capacity at the local level. This finding provides, in a way, a theoretical explanation …