Essays on Taxes, Guns, and Education

This dissertation studies three topics: sales tax avoidance, gun control, and management practices effect on student performance. The first chapter studies the impact of a crackdown on e-commerce avoidance on cross-border shopping. As e-commerce has grown over the last few decades so has states\u27 concern for its use for sales tax avoidance. Using a panel of Washington State tax jurisdictions from 2005 through 2015, I estimate the effect of a sales tax regime change on the elasticities of taxable sales. I find the regime change, targeted at reducing sales tax avoidance through remote purchases, had a differential impact that varied by tax jurisdiction. I find that in tax jurisdictions near the border of lower-sales-tax states (Oregon and Idaho) consumers became more responsive to the difference in sales tax rates across borders than their counterparts in the interior of the state. I interpret this as a substitution by consumers along the Oregon and Idaho border from e-commerce purchases to cross-border shopping in order to avoid sales taxes. The second chapter studies the effects of gun control laws on firearm deaths. Over the past few decades, there have been large changes in many state\u27s gun laws. Their effect on homicides, suicides, and overall firearm deaths is unclear. We make use of a new database of state gun law provisions from 1991 to 2016 to test the effectiveness of state gun control. There is a negative correlation between the number of gun control provisions and firearm death rates, but we find little evidence of a causal relationship. Using a difference-in-difference approach, we test the effectiveness of 13 broad provisions on state homicides and suicide rates. We find these provisions have little effect on reducing firearm homicides and suicides. We test two mechanisms for the lack of effectiveness in gun control laws: gun prevalence, and gun mobility in response to state law differences. We find some evidence that states with fewer provisions have more firearms, initially purchased there, recovered by police in other states. The third chapter studies the effects of good management practices on performance in the context of education. Managerial autonomy and good management practices could be either technical substitutes or complements in the production of organizational performance. We provide empirical evidence on the direction of this relationship by studying management practices and their effects on student performance in a large set of public and private schools in Indiana. We gather data on management practices from structured interviews with principals of 76 schools in Indiana and match those interviewees to their students\u27 performance on the state standardized test. We find that a one standard deviation (s.d.) increase in a school\u27s management score is associated with a 0.024 s.d. increase in those students\u27 average math score and a 0.025 s.d. increase in students\u27 average English/Language Arts (ELA) test score. The relationship between a school\u27s management practices and its students\u27 academic performance appears to differ by school type. This is suggestive that managerial autonomy and management practices are complements. However, differences in student characteristics explain much of the difference in student performance

Exploring Pet Loss for Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse: A Hitherto Unchartered Terrain of Trauma Impact and Recovery

Abstract not availabl

Too Loved to Be Forgotten: Pet Loss & Ritual Bereavement

Research concerning the human-animal bond has focused primarily on the grief reactions of pet owners when the pets die. The following study examines the use of burial rituals as they apply to pet loss and bereavement. The subjects describe experiences of honoring pets with funerals and burials influenced by human burial traditions. Whether the pet is buried in a pet cemetery or on private property, many pet owners consider the act of burying their pets a means of expressing grief over the loss of a valued companion. It was found that these pets often play the role of surrogate children to the owners, influencing the importance of the funeral ritual

Xylogalacturonan exists in cell walls from various tissues of Arabidopsis thaliana

Evidence is presented for the presence of xylogalacturonan (XGA) in Arabidopsis thaliana. This evidence was obtained by extraction of pectin from the seeds, root, stem, young leaves and mature leaves of A. thaliana, followed by treatment of these pectin extracts with xylogalacturonan hydrolase (XGH). Upon enzymatic treatment, XGA oligosaccharides were primarily produced from pectin extracts obtained from the young and mature leaves and to a lesser extent from those originating from the stem of A. thaliana. The oligosaccharide GalA3Xyl was predominantly formed from these pectin extracts. No XGA oligosaccharides were detected in digests of pectin extracts from the seeds and roots. A low number of XGA oligosaccharides was obtained from pectins of A. thaliana. This indicates a uniform distribution of xylose in XGA from A. thaliana. The predominant production of GalA3Xyl, as well as the release of linear GalA oligosaccharides pointed to a lower degree of xylose substitution in XGA from A. thaliana than in XGA from apple and potato. The estimated amount of XGA accounted for approximately 2.5%, 7% and 6% (w/w) of the total carbohydrate in the pectin fraction of the stem, young leaves and mature leaves, respectively

People and Animals, Kindness and Cruelty: Research Directions and Policy Implications

This article addresses the challenges of defining and assessing animal abuse, the relation between animal abuse and childhood mental health, the extensive research on animal abuse and intimate partner violence, and the implication of these empirical findings for programs to enhance human and animal welfare. Highlighted are recent developments and advances in research and policy issues on animal abuse. The reader is directed to existing reviews of research and areas of focus on the expanding horizon of empirical analyses and programmatic innovations addressing animal abuse. Following a discussion of forensic and veterinary issues related to animal abuse, we discuss policy issues including how the status of animals as human companions at times may place animals at risk. We also review developments in the field of human–animal relations and apply the primary– secondary–tertiary prevention public health model to prevention and treatment of animal abuse. We close with a description of community networks addressing animal abuse, interagency collaborations, and new developments in animal-related law