Economics Commons^™

Three Essays On The Search For Economic Efficiency, Jason J. Delaney

Economics Dissertations

The chapters of this dissertation examine efficiency failures in three areas of applied microeconomics: experimental economics, public finance, and game theory. In each case, we look at ways to resolve these failures to promote the public good. The first chapter, “An Experimental Test of the Pigovian Hypothesis,” looks at two different policies designed to reduce congestion in a common-pool resource (CPR). We present an experiment with training and a simplified decision task and find that subject behavior converges to the Nash prediction over a number of periods. A Pigovian subsidy effectively moves subject behavior to the pre-subsidy social optimum. Finally, …

Aspects Of Tax Spillovers: Is There A "Worldwide" Tax Burden?, Sandeep Bhattacharya

Economics Dissertations

The objective of this dissertation is to develop a model to examine the concept of a “worldwide” tax burden. The notion is that due to differential mobility of factors developed nations may be passing on a share of their tax burden to less developed countries while effectively indulging in a form of tax competition. This is important for many reasons especially since it may affect the distribution of income between countries, and influence the flow of capital. As globalization increases, “the race to the bottom” in taxation (which implies tax-cutting) suggests that these spillovers should be reduced over time. The …

Essays In Health Economics: A Focus On The Built Environment, Thomas James Christian

Economics Dissertations

The dissertation investigates how individual behaviors and health outcomes interplay with surrounding built environments, in three essays. We conceptually focus on travel behaviors and accessibility.

In the first essay, we hypothesize that urban sprawl increases requisite travel time which limits leisure time available as inputs to health production. We utilize the American Time Use Survey to quantify decreases in health-related activity participation due to commuting time. We identify significant evidence of trade-offs between commuting time and exercise, food preparation, and sleep behaviors, which exceed labor time trade-offs on a per-minute basis. Longer commutes are additionally associated with an increased likelihood …

Essays On Crime And Tax Evasion, Sean C. Turner

Economics Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays addressing two issues related to crime and tax evasion. The first essay investigates the relationship between property and violent crime with law enforcement expenditures. The second essay examines the market structure in transition economies and the effects on firm-level tax evasion. The third essay investigates the incidence of tax evasion in a general equilibrium framework. The topics in all three essays are linked by their focus on criminal or illegal behavior. The essays also answer questions related to developing sound governmental policy and decision-making.

Chapter one attempts to identify the impact on crime of …

Exploring Environmental Service Auctions, William B. Holmes

Economics Dissertations

The chapters of this dissertation explore related aspects of the procurement of conservation services from private landowners. In the first chapter, heuristic laboratory experiments reveal the impact of potential government regulation on strategic forces and efficiency properties in conservation procurement auctions. In the second chapter, data from past procurement auctions are analyzed to discover the existence and magnitude of premiums received by auction participants.

The first Chapter, “Procurement Auctions Under Regulatory Threat,” examines how strategic forces and efficiency properties are impacted in auctions for the procurement of environmental services when a threat of regulation is levied. Laboratory experiments examining different …

Essays On The Effects Of Early Childhood Malnutrition, Family Preferences And Personal Choices On Child Health And Schooling, Solomon T. Tesfu

Economics Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays investigating the role of early life events, family environment and personal choices in shaping a child’s chances for human capital accumulation. The first essay examines how physical stature of a child measured in terms of age standardized height influences his/her selection for family labor activities vs. schooling in rural Ethiopia using malnutrition caused by exposure to significant weather shocks in early childhood as sources of identification for the child’s physical stature. We find no evidence that better physical stature of the child leads to his/her positive selection for full-time child labor activities. On the …

Essays On Personal Income Taxation And Income Inequality, Denvil R. Duncan

Economics Dissertations

This dissertation comprises two essays that attempt to determine, empirically, the relationship between personal income taxation and income inequality. The first essay examines whether income inequality is affected by the structural progressivity of national income tax systems. Using detailed personal income tax schedules for a large panel of countries, we develop and estimate comprehensive, time-varying measures of structural progressivity of national income tax systems over the 1981–2005 period.

Our findings suggest that progressivity has a strong negative effect on inequality in reported gross and net income and that this negative effect is strongest in countries whose institutional framework supports pro-poor …

Essays On Agglomeration Trends In The U.S. Manufacturing Industries, 1988-2003, Abdullah Mahbuzzaman Khan

Economics Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two essays dealing with the trends in industrial agglomeration and changes in the influence of micro-determinants of agglomeration due to globalization in the U.S. manufacturing agglomeration and the second essay discusses the impact of globalization on the micro-determinants of agglomeration. The first essay explores recent agglomeration trends in the U.S. manufacturing industries between 1988 and 2003 using employment and employment-based agglomeration measures such as Ellison-Glaeser Index and Gini index, and using Herfindahl index as a measure of industrial concentration due to scale economies. Between 1988 and 2003, forty two states lost and eight states gained manufacturing …

Essays In Experimental And Environmental Economics, Sarah Jacobson

Economics Dissertations

The chapters of this dissertation explore complementary areas of applied microeconomics, within the fields of experimental and environmental economics. In each case, preferences and institutions interact in ways that enhance or subvert efficiency.

The first chapter, "The Girl Scout Cookie Phenomenon," uses a laboratory experiment to study favor trading in a public goods setting. The ability to practice targeted reciprocity increases contributions by 14%, which corresponds directly to increased efficiency. Subjects discriminate by rewarding group members who have been generous and withholding rewards from ungenerous group members. At least some reciprocal behavior is rooted in other-regarding preferences. When someone is …

Two Essays On Public Economics: The Consequences Of Fiscal Decentralization On Poverty And Inequality, And The Second Best Solution To The Public Expenditures’ Problem, Cristian F. Sepulveda

Economics Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two independent essays on public economics. The first essay studies the consequences of fiscal decentralization on poverty and income inequalities. This essay describes the possible channels through which fiscal decentralization might affect poverty and income inequalities, and carries out an empirical analysis with data of a large number of countries at different stages of development, for the period 1971-2000. Fiscal decentralization is found to have significant effects on poverty and income inequalities. These findings are important because they suggest, contrary to the traditional public finance theory, that sub-national governments can play an important role in the …

The Indirect Effects Of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs: An Empirical Analysis Of Familias En Accion, Monica P. Ospina

Economics Dissertations

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have become the most important social policy in Latin America, and their influence has spread to countries around the world. A number of studies provide strong evidence of the positive impacts of these programs on the main targeted outcomes, education and health, and have proved successful in other outcomes such as nutrition, household income, and child labor. As we expect CCT programs to remain a permanent aspect of social policy for the foreseeable future, demand for evidence of the indirect effects of CCT programs has grown beyond the initial emphasis of these programs. My research …