University of Wisconsin–Madison, Department of Economics
Economics 742: Topics in Public Economics
Office: 7454 Social Science Professor Scholz
E-mail: jkscholz@wisc.edu Fall 2006-07
Office Hours: 11:55am-12:55pm Mondays and 11-11:55 Wednesdays, or by appointment
Economics 742 examines the literature in several applied, empirical areas of public economics, focusing particularly on tax and expenditure policy. The purpose of this course is to gain an understanding of the literature and to develop insight into current research issues in the field. The reading list is too long to be covered in this course. It is provided to give some of the important citations in the areas I will cover. Pay very close attention to papers marked ** and read papers marked with *. The prerequisites for the course are Economics 711 and 713 and a graduate level course in econometrics.
Papers and Texts:
There is no required textbook for the course. Some useful textbooks in public economics are given at the beginning of this reading list. Gruber (an undergrad text) is available in the bookstore.
Lectures:
Mondays and Wednesdays 1:00-2:30, 6232 Social Science. There will be no class on Wednesday, November 15.
Grading:
I will assign four (or so) problem sets that will be collected and (lightly) graded. You should feel free to work together on these, but you must turn in your own work. The problem sets will sometimes make use of the statistical packages Stata or Gauss, available for classroom and research use in the social science computer center. If you have not yet done so, please become familiar with the computer center on the third floor of social science and get whatever authorization you need to use their machines.
There will be an in-class final exam to be scheduled at a mutually agreeable time. Grades will be based on a combination of problem sets (30 percent), the final exam (60 percent), and class participation (10 percent).
Course Web Site:
I will post course material at http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~scholz/teaching_742.htm
Field Paper:
For students in the public economics field, a field paper is due August, 2007. If you are writing a field paper in Public, start talking to the public faculty (Professors Brown, Cooley, Wolfe, or me) sometime before the summer (ideally well before the summer).
Grievance Procedure:
A blurb about the Economics Department grievance procedure is on the last page of the syllabus.
Journal Abbreviations for the Syllabus
AER American Economic Review BPEA Brookings Papers on Economic Activity
Econ Econometrica JEL Journal of Economic Literature
JEP Journal of Economic Perspectives JHR Journal of Human Resources
JPE Journal of Political Economy JPubE Journal of Public Economics
NTJ National Tax Journal QJE Quarterly Journal of Economics
Useful General References
Atkinson, A. and J. Stiglitz, Lectures in Public Economics, New York: McGraw Hill, 1980
Auerbach, A. and M. Feldstein, Handbook of Public Economics, Volumes 1-4, Amsterdam: North Holland, 1985, 1987, 2002, and 2002
Hindriks, Jean and Gareth D. Myles, Intermediate Public Economics, MIT Press, 2006
Laffont, J.J., Fundamentals of Public Economics, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988
Myles, G. Public Economics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995
Quigley, J. and E. Smolensky, Modern Public Finance, Harvard University Press, 1994
Gruber, Jonathan. Public Finance and Public Policy,1st edition, Worth Publishers, 2005 (unusually good undergraduate text)
Salanie, B., The Economics of Taxation, Cambridge, MIT Press, 2003
Starret, D., Foundations of Public Economics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988
Stiglitz, J. Economics of the Public Sector, 3rd edition, Norton, 1999 (undergraduate text)
Tresch, Richard. Public Finance: A Normative Theory. Academic Press, 2002
Useful Advice to Economists (read on your own)
McCloskey, Donald, "Economical Writing," Economic Inquiry, April, 1985, 187-222
Hamermesh, Daniel S., "The Young Economist's Guide to Professional Etiquette," JEP, Winter, 1992, 169-179
Thomson, William, A Guide for the Young Economist, MIT Press, 2001
I. Introduction
II. Optimal Taxation and Evasion
III. Tax Rates and Taxable Income
Slemrod, Joel, “Methodological Issues in Measuring and Interpreting Taxable Income Elasticities,” NTJ, December, 1998, 773-88
Carroll, Robert, “Do Taxpayers Really Respond to Changes in Tax Rates? Evidence From the 1993 Tax Act,” OTA Working Paper, July, 1998
Goolsbee, Austan, “It’s Not About the Money: Why Natural Experiments Don’t Work on the Rich,” NBER Working Paper #6395
M. Bianchi, B. Gudmundsson, and G. Zoega, “Iceland’s Natural Experiment in Supply-Side Economics,” AER, 91, December 2001, 1564-1579
IV. Taxation and Saving, and Tax Incentives to Promote Household Saving
** Gale, William G. and John Karl Scholz, "IRAs and Household Saving," AER, December, 1994, 1233-1260
* Bernheim, B. Douglas, “Taxation and Saving,” Handbook of Public Economics, volume 3. 1173-1249
Poterba, Jim, Steve Venti, and David Wise, "How Retirement Saving Programs Increase Saving," JEP, Fall 1996, 91-112
Engen, Eric M., William G. Gale, and John Karl Scholz, "The Illusory Effects of Saving Incentives,” JEP, Fall 1996, 113-138
Gale, William G., “The Effects of Pensions on Household Wealth: A Re-Evaluation of Theory and Evidence,” JPE, August 1998, 706-723
V. Are Americans Preparing Adequately for Retirement?
Hubbard, Glenn, Jon Skinner, and Steve Zeldes, "The Importance of Precautionary Motives in Explaining Individual and Aggregate Saving," JPE, April, 1995, 360-399
Banks, James, Richard Blundell, and Sarah Tanner, “Is There a Retirement-Savings Puzzle?” American Economic Review, September, 1998, 769-788
Attanasio, Orazio, "A Cohort Analysis of Saving Behavior by U.S. Households," Journal of Human Resources, Summer, 1998, 575-609
Boskin, Michael, "Taxation, Saving, and the Rate of Interest," JPE, Part 2, April 1978, pp. 3-27
Howrey, E. and Saul Hymans, "The Measurement and Determinants of Loanable Funds Saving," BPEA, 1978
Hall, Robert, "Intertemporal Substitution in Consumption," JPE, 96, 1988, pp. 337-357
Jappelli, Tullio and Marco Pagano, "Saving, Growth, and Liquidity Constraints," QJE, February, 1994, 83-109
Slemrod, Joel, "Fear of Nuclear War and Intercountry Differences in Saving," Economic Inquiry, 28, 1990, pp. 647-657
VI. Taxation and Individual Financial Behavior
Auerbach, Alan, "Retrospective Capital Gains Taxation," AER, 1991
Auerbach, Alan J., Leonard E. Burman and Jonathan M. Siegal, “Capital Gains Taxation and Tax Avoidance: New Evidence From Panel Data,” NBER Working Paper #6399
Poterba, James, "How Burdensome are Capital Gains Taxes?" JPubE, 33, 1987, 157-172
Stiglitz, Joseph, "Some Aspects of Capital Gains Taxation," JPubE, 21, 1983, 257-294
VII. The Corporate Income Tax, Capital Structure and Other Aspects of Financial Policy
Auerbach, Alan J., “Who Bears the Corporate Tax? A Review of What We Know,” NBER Working Paper #11686
Graham, John R., “Taxes and Corporate Finance: A Review,” Review of Financial Studies, 16:4, Winter 2003
MacKie-Mason, Jeffrey, "Do Taxes Affect Corporate Financing Decisions?," Journal of Finance, 1990
Givoly, D. (and coauthors), "Taxes and Capital Structure: Evidence From Firms' Response to the Tax Reform Act of 1986," Review of Financial Studies, 5(2), 1992
Gordon, Roger and Burton Malkiel, "Corporation Finance", in How Taxes Affect Economic Behavior, Aaron and Pechman (eds), Brookings, 1981
Jensen, Michael, and William Meckling, "Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Cost and Capital Structure," Journal of Financial Economics, 3, 1976
Miller, Merton, "Debt and Taxes," Journal of Finance, May, 1977
Modigliani, Franco and Merton Miller, "The Cost of Capital, Corporation Finance, and the Theory of Investment," AER, June, 1958
Modigliani, Franco and Merton Miller, "Corporation Income Taxes and the Cost of Capital: A Correction," AER, June 1963
Myers, Stewart, "Determination of Corporate Borrowing," Journal of Financial Economics, 5, 1977
Ross, Stephen, "The Determination of Financial Structure: The Incentive Signaling Approach," Bell Journal, Spring, 1977
Bernheim, B. Douglas and Adam Wanz, "A Tax-Based Test of the Dividend Signaling Hypothesis," AER, June, 1995, 532-551
Auerbach, Alan "Wealth Maximization and the Cost of Capital," QJE, August, 1979
Bernheim, B. Douglas, "Tax Policy and the Dividend Puzzle," Rand Journal of Economics, 1991
Bhattacharya, Sudipto, "Imperfect Information, Dividend Policy, and 'The Bird in the Hand' Fallacy," Bell Journal, Spring, 1979
Black, Fisher, "The Dividend Puzzle," Journal of Portfolio Management, Winter, 1976
Miller, Merton and Franco Modigliani, "Dividend Policy, Growth and Valuation of Shares," Journal of Business, October, 1961
Poterba, James and Lawrence Summers, "The Economic Effects of Dividend Taxation," in Recent Developments in Corporate Finance, E. Altman and M. Subrahmanyan, (eds.), Dow Jones Irwin, 1985
Scholz, John Karl, "A Direct Examination of the Dividend Clientele Hypothesis," JPubE, 1992, 261-285
Shefrin, Hersh and Meir Statman, "Explaining Investor Preference for Cash Dividends," Journal of Financial Economics, 13, 1984
VIII. The Earned Income Tax Credit: Taxes and Labor Supply at Low Incomes
Hotz, V. Joseph and John Karl Scholz, “The Earned Income Tax Credit,” in Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the U.S., Robert Moffitt, Editor, The University of Chicago Press and NBER, 2003
Scholz, John Karl, "The Earned Income Tax Credit: Participation, Compliance, and Anti-poverty Effectiveness," NTJ, March, 1994, 59-81
Ellwood, David, “The Impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Other Social Policy Changes on Work and Marriage in the United States,” NTJ, 53, 2000, 1063-1106
IX. Income Transfer Programs
* Blank, Rebecca, “Evaluating Welfare Reform in the U.S.,” JEL, December 2002, 1105-1166
Levine, Kara and John Karl Scholz, “The Evolution of Income Support Policy in Recent Decades,” with Kara Levine, in Understanding Poverty, S. Danziger and R. Haveman (eds), Harvard University Press and Russell Sage Foundation, 2002, 193-228 (see http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~scholz/Research/recent_papers.htm)
Ellwood, David, “Anti-Poverty Policy for Families in the Next Century: From Welfare to Work and Worries,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2000, 187-198
Moffitt, Robert, “The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program,” in Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the U.S., Robert Moffitt, Editor, The University of Chicago Press and NBER, 2003, 291-362
Knox, Virginia, Cynthia Miller and Lisa A. Gennetian, “Reforming Welfare and Rewarding Work: A Summary of the Final Report on the Minnesota Family Investment Program,” Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, September 2000, www.mdrc.org/Reports2000/MFIP/MFIP-ExSum-Final.htm
Blank, Rebecca M. and Patricia Ruggles, "When Do Women Use Aid to Families with Dependent Children and Food Stamps?" JHR, Winter, 1996, 57-89
Hoynes, Hilary Williamson, "Welfare Transfers in Two-Parent Families: Labor Supply and Welfare Participation Under AFDC-UP," Econ, March, 1996, 295-332
Moffitt, Robert, “Welfare Programs and Labor Supply,” NBER Working Paper #9168, Handbook of Public Economics, volume 4
Moffitt, Robert, "Incentive Effects of the U.S. Welfare System: A Review," JEL, March, 1992, 1-61
Moffitt, Robert A., 1998, “The Effects of Welfare on Marriage and Fertility,” in Welfare, the Family and Reproductive Behavior, R. Moffitt (ed.), National Academy Press, 50-97
Akerlof, George, “The Economics of Tagging as Applied to the Optimal Income Tax,” American Economic Review, 1978, 8-19
Besley, Timothy and Stephen Coate, “The Design of Income Maintenance Programmes,” ReStud, April 1995, 187-221
Saez, Emmanuel, “Optimal Income Transfer Programs: Intensive versus Extensive Labor Supply Responses,” QJE, August 2002, 1039-1073
Zeckhauser, Richard, “Optimal Mechanisms for Income Transfers,” AER, June 1971, 324-334
Nichols, A. and Richard Zeckhauser, “Targeting Transfers Through Restrictions on Recipients,” AER, 72(2), May 1982, 372-377
Gruber, Jonathan, “Medicaid” NBER Working Paper #7829, in Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the U.S., Robert Moffitt, Editor, The University of Chicago Press and NBER, 2003, 15-77
Cutler, David and Jonathan Gruber, “Does Public Insurance Crowd Our Private Insurance?” QJE, 111, May 1996, 391-430
Currie, Janet, “U.S. Food and Nutrition Programs,” in Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the U.S., Robert Moffitt, Editor, The University of Chicago Press and NBER, 2003, 199-289
Daponte, Beth Osbourne, Seth Sanders and Lowell Taylor, “Why Do Low-Income Households Not Use Food Stamps? Evidence from an Experiment,” Journal of Human Resources, Summer 1999, 612-28
Bitler, Marianne, Janet Currie, and John Karl Scholz, “WIC Eligibility and Participation,” JHR, 38, 2003, 1139-1179
Currie, Janet and Aaron Yelowitz, “Are Public Housing Projects Good for Kids?” JPubE, January 2000, 99-124
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas, “Does Head Start Make a Difference?” AER, 85:3, 1995, 341-64
Garces, Eliana, Duncan Thomas and Janet Currie, “Longer Term Effects of Head Start,” NBER WP #8054, December 2000
Currie, Janet and Matthew Neidell, “Getting Inside the ‘Black Box’ of Head Start Quality: What Matters and What Doesn't?” NBER Working Paper 10091, November 2003
X. Social Security and Social Insurance
* Feldstein, Martin, “Rethinking Social Insurance,” AER, March 2005, 1-24
Krueger, Alan B. and Bruce D. Meyer, “Labor Supply Effects of Social Insurance,” NBER Working Paper #9014, Handbook of Public Economics, volume 4
Gruber, Jonathan, “Disability Insurance Benefits and Labor Supply,” JPE, 108, 2000, 1162-1183
Meyer, Bruce, “Lessons from the U.S. Unemployment Insurance Experiments,” JEL, March 1995, 91-131
Feldstein, Martin and Jeffrey Liebman, “Social Security,” Handbook of Public Economics, volume 4, 2245-2315
Diamond, Peter, “Social Security,” AER, March, 2004, 1-24
Gruber, Jonathan and David Wise, “Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World,” NBER Working Paper #6134, “Introduction and Summary,” in Social Security and Retirement Around the World, University of Chicago Press, 1999, p. 1-36
Aaron, Henry J and John B. Shoven, Should the United States Privatize Social Security?, The Alvin Hansen Symposium on Public Policy, Harvard University, MIT Press, 1999
Diamond, Peter A., "Proposals to Restructure Social Security," JEP, Summer, 1996, 67-88
Feldstein, Martin, "The Missing Piece in Policy Analysis: Social Security Reform," AER, May, 1996, 1-14
Feldstein, Martin and Andrew Samwick, “Two Percent Personal Retirement Accounts: Their Potential Effects on Social Security Tax Rates and National Saving,” NBER Working Paper #6540
Gramlich, Edward M., "Different Approaches for Dealing with Social Security," JEP, Summer, 1996, 55-66
Samuelson, Paul, "An Exact Consumption Loan Model of Interest with and without the Social Contrivance of Money," JPE, December, 1958
Diamond, Peter, “A Framework for Social Security Analysis,” JPubE, 1977, 275-298
Diamond, Peter and James Mirrlees,"A Model of Social Insurance with Variable Retirement," JPubE, 1978
Bernheim, Douglas, "The Economic Effects of Social Security: Towards a Reconciliation of Theory and Measurement," JPubE, 1987, 273-304
Feldstein, Martin, “The Optimal Level of Social Security Benefits,” QJE, May, 1985 300-20
Feldstein, Martin, “Should Social Security be Means Tested?” JPE, 1987, 468-84
Eckstein, Zvi, Martin Eichenbaum, and Dan Peled, "Uncertainty and the Welfare Enhancing Properties of Annuity Markets and Social Security," JPubE, 26, 1985
Coile, Courtney and Jonathan Gruber, “Social Security and Retirement,” NBER Working Paper #7830, August 2000
Burtless, Gary, "Social Security, Unanticipated Benefit Increases, and the Timing of Retirement," REStud, 53, 1986
Diamond, Peter and Jerry Hausman, "Individual Retirement and Savings Behavior," JPubE, 23, 1984
Friedberg, Leora, "The Labor Supply Effects of the Social Security Earnings Test," ReStat, 82, February 2000, 48-63
Feldstein, Martin, "Social Security, Induced Retirement, and Aggregate Capital Accumulation," JPE, September, 1974 (also comment in 1982)
Leimer, D. and Selig Lesnoy, "Social Security and Private Saving: New Time Series Evidence," JPE, 90, 1982
Feldstein, Martin, "Social Security and Saving: New Time Series Evidence," NTJ, June, 1996, 151-164
Congressional Budget Office, “Social Security and Private Saving: A Review of the Empirical Evidence,” July 1998
Hurd, Michael, "Research on the Elderly: Economic Status, Retirement, Consumption and Saving," JEL, June, 1990, 565-637
Lumsdaine, Robin L. and David A. Wise, "Aging and Labor Force Participation: A Review of Trends and Explanations," in Aging in the United States and Japan, Noguchi and Wise (eds.), University of Chicago Press, 7-41
XI. Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations
Hines, James and Richard Thaler, “Anomalies: The Flypaper Effect,” Journal of Public Economics, 1995
There are many other issues in public economics that I would love to cover if there was more time. As you continue to study the field and develop topics for your research, the following citations may come in handy.
Tax Incidence
Fullerton, Don and Gilbert E. Metcalf, “Tax Incidence,” NBER Working Paper #8829, Handbook of Public Economics, volume 4
Cutler, David, “Tax Reform and the Stock Market: An Asset Price Approach,” AER, December, 1988, 1107-1117
Atkinson, Anthony B. and Joseph E. Stiglitz, Lectures on Public Economics, McGraw Hill, 1980, Chapter 6
Kotlikoff, Laurence and Lawrence Summers, "Tax Incidence," in Handbook of Public Economics, (Auerbach and Feldstein, eds.), Volume 2, North Holland, 1987
Ballard, Charles, Donald Fullerton, John Shoven and John Whalley, General Equilibrium Analysis of U.S. Tax Policies, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985
Gravelle, Jane and Laurence Kotlikoff, "The Incidence and Efficiency Costs of Corporate Taxation when Corporate and Noncorporate Firms Produce the Same Goods," JPE, 1989
Harberger, Arnold, "The Incidence of the Corporate Income Tax," JPE, June, 1962
Joint Committee on Taxation, "Methodology and Issues in Measuring Changes in the Distribution of Tax Burdens," Joint Committee Print, June 14, 1993
McLure, Charles, "General Equilibrium Incidence Analysis: The Harberger Model After Ten Years," JPubE, February, 1975
Shoven, John and John Whalley, "Applied General Equilibrium Models of Taxation and International Trade," JEL, September, 1984
Whalley, John, "Lessons From General Equilibrium Models," in Uneasy Compromise: Problems of a Hybrid Income-Consumption Tax, H. Aaron, H. Galper, J. Pechman (eds.), The Brookings Institution, 1990
Expenditure Incidence
Summers, Lawrence, “Some Simple Economics of Mandated Benefits,” AER, May 1989, 177-183
Gruber, Jonathan, "The Incidence of Mandated Maternity Benefits," AER, June, 1994, 622-641
Gruber, Jonathan and Alan Krueger, "The Incidence of Mandated Employer-Provided Insurance: Lessons from Workers' Compensation Insurance," Tax Policy and the Economy, D. Bradford (ed.), NBER and MIT Press, 1991, 111-143
The Theory of Labor Taxation
Diamond, Peter, “Optimal Income Taxation: An Example with a U-Shaped Pattern of Optimal Marginal Tax Rates,” American Economic Review, 1998 (March), 83-95
Auerbach, Alan J. and James R. Hines, “Taxation and Economic Efficiency,” NBER Working Paper #8181
Understanding Economic Behavior: Nonstructural Approaches
Angrist, Joshua D. and Alan B. Krueger, “Empirical Strategies in Labor Economics,” in Handbook of Labor Economics, Volume 3, Ashenfelter and Card (eds.), Elsevier, 1999, 1277-1366
Eissa, Nada, "Labor Supply and the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981," in Empirical Foundations of Household Taxation, Feldstein and Poterba (ed.), NBER and University of Chicago Press, 1996, 5-37
Heckman, James J., "Comment," in Empirical Foundations of Household Taxation, Feldstein and Poterba (ed.), NBER and University of Chicago Press, 1996, 32-38
Bertrand, Marianne, Esther Duflo, and Sendhil Mullainathan, “How Much Should We Trust Differences-in-Differences Estimates?” NBER Working Paper #8841, QJE
Holtz-Eakin, Doug, David Joulfaian, and Harvey Rosen, "The Carnegie Conjecture: Some Empirical Evidence," QJE, May, 1993, 413-435
Taxes and Labor Supply
Blundell, Richard and Thomas MaCurdy, “Labor Supply: A Review of Alternative Approaches,” in Handbook of Labor Economics, Vol 3, Ashenfelter and Card (eds.), Elsevier, 1999, 1569-1695
Pencavel, John, "Labor Supply of Men," in Handbook of Labor Economics, Ashenfelter (ed), North Holland, volume I, 1986
Hausman, Jerry, "Taxation and Labor Supply," in Handbook of Public Economics, Auerbach and Feldstein (eds), North Holland, volume 1, 1987
Hausman, Jerry, "Labor Supply," in How Taxes Affect Economic Behavior, H. Aaron and J. Pechman (eds.), Brookings, 1981
Moffitt, Robert, "The Econometrics of Kinked Budget Constraints," JEP, Spring 1990, 119-139
Triest, Robert K., 1990, "The Effect of Income Taxation on Labor Supply in the United States," JHR, Vol. 25, No. 3, 491-516
MaCurdy, Thomas, "Work Disincentive Effects of Taxes: A Reexamination of Some Evidence," AER, May 1992, 243-249
Heckman, James J., "Comment," in Behavioral Simulations in Tax Policy Analysis, Feldstein (ed.), 1982, 70-82
MaCurdy, Thomas, David Green, and Harry Paarsch, "Assessing Empirical Approaches for Analyzing Taxes and Labor Supply," JHR, Summer 1990, 415-490
Matias Eklof and Hans Sacklen, “The Hausman-MaCurdy Controversy: Why Do the Results Differ Across Studies?” JHR, 35, 2000, 204-220
Heim, Bradley T. and Bruce D. Meyer, “Structural Labor Supply Models when Budget Constraints are Nonlinear,” December, 2003 Working Paper, (find it at http://www.econ.duke.edu/~bheim/)
Blundell, Richard, Alan Duncan and Costas Meghir, “Estimating Labor Supply Responses Using Tax Reforms,” Econometrica, July, 1998, 827-861
Mroz, Thomas A., "The Sensitivity of an Empirical Model of Married Women's Hours of Work to Economic and Statistical Assumptions," Econ, July 1987, 765-800
Eissa, Nada, “Taxation and Labor Supply of Married Women: The Tax Reform Act of 1986 as a Natural Experiment,” NBER Working Paper #5023, 1995
Ziliak, James and Thomas Kniesner, “Estimating Life Cycle Labor Supply Tax Effects,” Journal of Political Economy, April 1999, 326-359
Excise Taxes
Evans, William N., Jeanne S. Ringel and Diana Stech, “Tobacco Taxes and Public Policy to Discourage Smoking,” Tax Policy and the Economy, (J. Poterba, ed), 1999
Besley, Timothy J. and Harvey S. Rosen, “Vertical Externalities in Tax Setting: Evidence from Gasoline and Cigarettes,” NBER Working Paper #6517
Chaloupka, Frank A. and Henry Wechsler, “Price, Tobacco Control Policies and Smoking Among Young Adults,” Journal of Health Economics, 1997, 359-373
Evans, William N. and Matthew C. Farrelly, “The Compensating Behavior of Smokers: Taxes, Tar and Nicotine,” Rand Journal, Autumn 1998, 578-95
Evans, William N. and Jeanne S. Ringel, “Can Higher Cigarette Taxes Improve Birth Outcomes,” Journal of Public Economics, April 1999, 135-54
Estate Taxes
Bernheim, B. Douglas, Robert Lemke and John Karl Scholz, “Do Estate and Gift Taxes Affect the Timing of Transfers?” (see http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~scholz/Research/recent_papers.htm), forthcoming, JPubE
Gale, William G. and Joel Slemrod, “Rethinking the Estate and Gift Tax: Overview,” NBER Working Paper #8205
Gale, William G. and Joel B. Slemrod, “Life and Death Questions About the Estate Tax,” NTJ, December 2000, 889-912
Sales Taxes
McLure, Charles E., “Thinking Straight About the Taxation of Electronic Commerce: Tax Principles, Compliance Problems, and Nexus,” Tax Policy and the Economy, 2002, 115-140
Goolsbee, Austan, “In a World Without Borders: The Impact of Taxes on Internet Commerce,” QJE, May, 2000, 561-76
Property Taxes
Cutler, David M., Douglas W. Elmendorf, and Richard Zeckhauser, “Restraining the Leviathan: Property Tax Limitation in Massachusetts,” Journal of Public Economics; March 1999, 313-34.
Mark, Stephen T., Therese J. McGuire, Leslie-E. Papke, “The Influence of Taxes on Employment and Population Growth: Evidence from the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area,” National Tax Journal, March 2000, 105-23
McGuire, Therese J., “Proposition 13 and Its Offspring: For Good or for Evil?” National Tax Journal, March 1999, 129-38
The Corporate Income Tax and Investment
Hassett, Kevin and R. Glenn Hubbard, “Tax Policy and Business Investment,” Handbook of Public Economics, volume 3. 1293-1343
Auerbach, Alan and Kevin Hassett, "Tax Policy and Business Fixed Investment in the United States," JPubE, March, 1992, 141-170
Auerbach, Alan and Kevin Hassett, "Recent U.S. Investment Behavior and the Tax Reform Act of 1986: A Disaggregate View," NBER WP#3626, February 1991
Chirinko, Robert S., "Business Investment and Tax Policy: A Perspective on Existing Models and Empirical Results," NTJ, June 1986
Chirinko, Robert S., "Business Fixed Investment Spending: A Critical Survey of Modeling Strategies, Empirical Results, and Policy Implications," JEL December, 1993
Hall, Robert and Dale Jorgenson, "Tax Policy and Investment Behavior," AER, June, 1967 (and comments in June 1969, and October 1980)
Hassett, Kevin A. and R. Glenn Hubbard, "Tax Policy and Investment," NBER WP#5683, July, 1996
Summers, Lawrence, "Taxation and Corporate Investment: A Q-Theory Approach," BPEA, 1981:1
Grievance Procedure
The Department of Economics has developed a grievance procedure though which you may register comments or complaints about a course, an instructor, or a teaching assistant. The Department continues to provide a course evaluation each semester in every class. If you wish to make anonymous complaints to an instructor or teaching assistant, the appropriate vehicle is the course evaluation. If you have a disagreement with an instructor or teaching assistant, we strongly encourage you to try and resolve the dispute with him or her directly. The grievance procedure is designed for situations where neither of these channels is appropriate.
If you wish to file a grievance, you should go to room 7238 Social Science and request a Course Comment Sheet. When completing the comment sheet, you will need to provide a detailed statement that describes what aspects of the course you find unsatisfactory. You will need to sign the sheet and provide your student identification number, your address, and a phone number where you can be reached. The Department plans to investigate comments fully and will respond in writing to complaints.
Your name, address, phone number, and student ID number will not be revealed to the instructor or teaching assistant involved and will be treated as confidential. The Department needs this information, because is may become necessary for a commenting student to have a meeting with the department chair or a nominee to gather additional information. A name and address are necessary to provide a written response.