Public Economics

Econometric Analysisi, 6/eserves as a bridge between an introduction to the field of econometrics and the professional literature for social scientists and other professionals in the field of social sciences, focusing on applied econometrics and…

In this paper, I show how to estimate the parameters of the beta-binomial distribution and its multivariate generalization, the Dirichlet-multinomial distribution. This approach involves no additional programming, as it relies on an existing Stata…

In regression discontinuity (RD) designs for evaluating causal effects of interventions, assignment to a treatment is determined at least partly by the value of an observed covariate lying on either side of a fixed threshold. These designs were…

Most papers that employ Differences-in-Differences estimation (DD) use many years of data and focus on serially correlated outcomes but ignore that the resulting standard errors are inconsistent. To illustrate the severity of this issue, we randomly…

Using data from the March Current Population Survey, we document an increase over the past 30 years in wage inequality for males. Between 1963 and 1989, real average weekly wages for the least skilled workers (as measured by the tenth percentile of…

A central message of the tax competition literature is that independent governments engage in wasteful competition for scarce capital through reductions in tax rates and public expenditure levels. This paper discusses many of the contributions to…

This article focuses on the impact of scale economies on whether a market solution will yield the socially optimum kinds and quantities of commodities in welfare economics. This article develops some models to study various aspects of the…

This paper is an exploratory and tentative study of the specific differentia of medical care as the object of normative economics. It is contended here, on the basis of comparison of obvious characteristics of the medical-care industry with the…

This paper critically surveys the large and growing literature estimating the elasticity of taxable income with respect to marginal tax rates (ETI) using tax return data. First, we provide a theoretical framework showing under what assumptions this…

This paper tests whether OECD countries compete with each other over corporate taxes in order to attract investment. We develop two models: with firm mobility, countries compete only over the statutory tax rate or the effective average tax rate,…

This paper reports new estimates of the sensitivity of taxable income to changes in tax rates based on a comparison of the tax returns of the same individual taxpayers before and after the 1986 tax reform. This comparison is done by using a panel of…

Many empirical questions in economics and other social sciences depend on causal effects of programs or policies. In the last two decades, much research has been done on the econometric and statistical analysis of such causal effects. This recent…

This paper discusses the bias that results from using nonrandomly selected samples to estimate behavioral relationships as an ordinary specification error or "omitted variables" bias. A simple consistent two stage estimator is considered that…

A buyer with private information regarding marginal valuation bargains with a seller to determine price and quantity of trade. Depending on parameter values, a high-valuation buyer wants either to reveal information to create value or to conceal it…

This graduate text provides an intuitive but rigorous treatment of contemporary methods used in microeconometric research. The book makes clear that applied microeconometrics is about the estimation of marginal and treatment effects, and that…

This paper examines whether the Solow growth model is consistent with the international variation in the standard of living. It shows that an augmented Solow model that includes accumulation of human as well as physical capital provides an excellent…

Community standards of fairness for the setting of prices and wages were elicited by telephone surveys. In customer or labor markets, it is acceptable for a firm to raise prices (or cut wages) when profits are threatened and to maintain prices when…

As firms switch from defined-benefit plans to defined-contribution plans, employees bear more responsibility for making decisions about how much to save. The employees who fail to join the plan or who participate at a very low level appear to be…

On April 1, 1992, New Jersey's minimum wage rose from $4.25 to $5.05 per hour. To evaluate the impact of the law we surveyed 410 fast-food restaurants in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania before and after the rise. Comparisons of employment growth…

This paper develops an approach to the study of democratic policy-making where politicians are selected by the people from those citizens who present themselves as candidates for public office. The approach has a number of attractive features.…