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Full-Text Articles in Political Economy

Using Short Movie And Television Clips In The Economics Principles Class, Robert L. Sexton Dec 2006

Using Short Movie And Television Clips In The Economics Principles Class, Robert L. Sexton

Robert L Sexton

The author describes a teaching method that uses powerful contemporary media, movie and television clips, to demonstrate the enormous breadth and depth of economic concepts. Many different movie and television clips can be used to show the power of economic analysis. The author describes the scenes and the economic concepts within those scenes for a number of movies.


New Entry And The Rate Of Return To Education: The Case Of Registered Nurses, Surrey Walton, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton Dec 2004

New Entry And The Rate Of Return To Education: The Case Of Registered Nurses, Surrey Walton, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton

Robert L Sexton

In the 1970's, the percentage of high school graduates completing RN training increased with little change in the rate of return to training. During the 1980's this percentage declined, despite large increases in the rate of return. The national data employed here examine long-run trends (with emphasis on the 1970's and 1980's) in financial incentives and entry into the nursing profession and suggest that broader professional career opportunities in the 1980's exerted a large impact vis-a-vis the 1970's, among other factors. Rates of return remain high in the 1990's with modest signs of the market stabilizing. Successful policies to ensure …


Computing The Extent Of Circumvention Of Proposition 13: A Response, Robert L. Sexton, Gary M. Galles Dec 1999

Computing The Extent Of Circumvention Of Proposition 13: A Response, Robert L. Sexton, Gary M. Galles

Robert L Sexton

ABSTRACT. Galles and Sexton (1998) showed that California state and local revenues exceeded their previous real per capita levels as did the sum of property taxes plus charges and miscellaneous revenues within a decade after Proposition 13 passed, and concluded that Proposition 13 was only temporarily successful at shrinking California state and local governments. Khoury and Pal (2000) challenge this conclusion. However, their conclusion that Proposition 13’s circumvention “has been only marginal” results from using per $1000 of income comparisons rather than real per capita comparisons and from using growth rate changes, which fail to adjust for U.S. fiscal trends, …


An Alternative Tale Of Two Tax Jurisdictions: A Reply, Robert L. Sexton, Gary Galles Jun 1999

An Alternative Tale Of Two Tax Jurisdictions: A Reply, Robert L. Sexton, Gary Galles

Robert L Sexton

ABSTRACT. Cebula (1999) suggests that the success of California's Proposition 13 and Massachusetts' Proposition 2-1/2 is better judged by their effects on the growth rates of real per capita revenues and expenditures rather than on the te^ek of those variables, which Galles and Sexton (1998) used to evaluate those measures. However, the data shows that virtually all of their effects, relative to the United States as a whole, arose during their implementation periods, and that there is no clear evidence of the "longer term success in terms of reducing the growth rate of real per capita revenues and expenditures" that …


Amenities And Fringe Benefits: Omitted Variable Bias, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton, Michelle M. Arthur Dec 1998

Amenities And Fringe Benefits: Omitted Variable Bias, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton, Michelle M. Arthur

Robert L Sexton

If labor is fairly mobile, as it is in the United States, one would expect that households would move from less desirable areas toward more desirable areas until all areas are equally desirable. The way that areas become equally desirable is through the impact of movers on wages and rents (and possibly "endogenous" disamenities, such as congestion or pollution). That is, as people move to desirable areas, they will increase the demand for land (raising rents) and increase the supply of labor (lowering wages); in equilibrium, the wage and rent "compensation" for the niceness of an area reveals, in dollar …


Diseconomies Of School District Size, Robert Sexton Jan 1995

Diseconomies Of School District Size, Robert Sexton

Robert L Sexton

No abstract provided.


Restrictiong Taxation: The Impact Of Proposition 13 On California Tax And Expenditure Trends, Robert L. Sexton, Gary M. Galles Dec 1994

Restrictiong Taxation: The Impact Of Proposition 13 On California Tax And Expenditure Trends, Robert L. Sexton, Gary M. Galles

Robert L Sexton

No abstract provided.


Union Myopia And The Taxation Of Capital, Dwight Lee, Robert L. Sexton, Philip E. Graves Dec 1994

Union Myopia And The Taxation Of Capital, Dwight Lee, Robert L. Sexton, Philip E. Graves

Robert L Sexton

After an extensive discussion of the nature of the interactions among unions, corporations, and government, we find that government in granting privileges to workers organized into unions implicitly taxes capital formation. The result has been to lessen the attention business decisions pay to the future, to substitute excessive wages for appropriate capital investment, and to reduce the competitive vitality of major U.S. industries.


Restricting Taxation: The Impact Of Proposition 13 On California Tax And Expenditure Trends, Robert L. Sexton, Gary M. Galles, James E. Long Dec 1994

Restricting Taxation: The Impact Of Proposition 13 On California Tax And Expenditure Trends, Robert L. Sexton, Gary M. Galles, James E. Long

Robert L Sexton

Abstract: This paper examines trends in California taxes and expenditures at the state and local level. In particular, it considers whether Proposition 13, which has been blamed by politicians and the press for virtually every ensuing fiscal problem facing state and local governments in California, deserves such criticism, or whether the roots of those problems lie elsewhere.


Union Myopia And The Taxation Of Capital, Dwight Lee, Robert L. Sexton, Philip E. Graves Dec 1994

Union Myopia And The Taxation Of Capital, Dwight Lee, Robert L. Sexton, Philip E. Graves

Robert L Sexton

After an extensive discussion of the nature of the interactions among unions, corporations, and government, we find that government in granting privileges to workers organized into unions implicitly taxes capital formation. The result has been to lessen the attention business decisions pay to the future, to substitute excessive wages for appropriate capital investment, and to reduce the competitive vitality of major U.S. industries.


Speed Variance, Enforcement, And The Optimal Speed Limit, Philip E. Graves, Dwight Lee, Robert L. Sexton Dec 1992

Speed Variance, Enforcement, And The Optimal Speed Limit, Philip E. Graves, Dwight Lee, Robert L. Sexton

Robert L Sexton

A model of the optimal speed limit is developed which explicitly recognizes the roles of average speed, speed variance, and the level of enforcement. An unusual result emerges, namely that a higher speed limit may be optimal when reducing the variance in highway speeds reduces accident externalities.


Controlling The Abandonment Of Automobiles: Mandatory Deposits Vs Fines, Dwight Lee, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton Dec 1991

Controlling The Abandonment Of Automobiles: Mandatory Deposits Vs Fines, Dwight Lee, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton

Robert L Sexton

There is no abstract, but the paper describes first-best solutions to the abandonment of automobiles, arguing that litter fines are inefficient with or without a mandatory deposit. However, the latter can generate first-best optimality.


Controlling The Abandonment Of Automobiles: Mandatory Deposits Vs Fines, Dwight Lee, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton Dec 1991

Controlling The Abandonment Of Automobiles: Mandatory Deposits Vs Fines, Dwight Lee, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton

Robert L Sexton

There is no abstract, but the paper describes first-best solutions to the abandonment of automobiles, arguing that litter fines are inefficient with or without a mandatory deposit. However, the latter can generate first-best optimality.


Statutes Versus Enforcement: The Case Of The Optimal Speed Limit, Philip E. Graves, Dwight R. Lee, Robert L. Sexton Aug 1989

Statutes Versus Enforcement: The Case Of The Optimal Speed Limit, Philip E. Graves, Dwight R. Lee, Robert L. Sexton

Robert L Sexton

There was no abstract for this paper.


Statutes Versus Enforcement: The Case Of The Optimal Speed Limit, Philip E. Graves, Dwight R. Lee, Robert L. Sexton Aug 1989

Statutes Versus Enforcement: The Case Of The Optimal Speed Limit, Philip E. Graves, Dwight R. Lee, Robert L. Sexton

Robert L Sexton

There was no abstract for this paper.


A Pollution Control Approach To Analysis Of The Balanced Budget Amendment, Robert L. Sexton, Dwight R. Lee Sep 1988

A Pollution Control Approach To Analysis Of The Balanced Budget Amendment, Robert L. Sexton, Dwight R. Lee

Robert L Sexton

Fiscal Pollution (excessive budget deficits), in certain aspects, is like environmental pollution. In both types of pollution some, possibly most individuals would be willing to reduce their own pollution if others would do the same. In the case of fiscal pollution individuals would be willing to give up their special interest demands if others would reciprocate in kind. But as long as individuals are forced to pay for the programs of others there is little incentive to reduce their own demands. Hence, restraints on political hehavior such as a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution are needed to control …