Academia in Anarchy: 50 Years On

In 1970, James Buchanan and Nicos Devletoglou published Academia in Anarchy: An Economic Diagnosis. Even though the book focuses on the industry Buchanan worked in for nearly 70 years, it is the only one of his non-autobiographical, non-textbook, books not included in his collected works. I evaluate the arguments of Buchanan and Devletoglou in light of the past 50 years of scholarship on the economics of higher education

Essays on the economics of education

The dissertation is a collection of essays examining three topics in the economics of education. The essays focus on the institutional structure of local and national education and the implications that demographics and institutional structure has on the productivity and financing of education. The first chapter introduces my essays by providing a brief overview of the economic study of education and highlights some of the major areas of research overlapping the topics covered in this dissertation. Chapter 2 looks at the impact of racial diversity on school performance. A measure of racial diversity is constructed for Ohio school districts to investigate the net effect of racial diversity on school district performance on statewide exams. The empirical results of this chapter suggest that racial diversity negatively affects school district performance. Chapter 3 considers the impact of interjurisdictional competition in the choice of a tax base. A spatial probit model is used on Ohio school district data to investigate two issues: (1) do school districts engage in yardstick competition\u27 in their choice of an income tax; and (2) does the negative impact of interjurisdictional competition disappear once yardstick competition is taken into account. The empirical evidence shows that districts do engage in yardstick competition but that controlling for yardstick competition does not affect the significance of interjurisdictional competition. Chapter 4 examines the role of institutions in the return to human and physical capital. A theoretical model is developed where the effect of the change in capital on the rate of growth depends on the level of institutional quality. The empirical model is estimated using cross-country data, where measures of a country\u27s institutions are interacted with their growth rates of physical and human capital. The empirical results suggest that the institutional environment is very important in translating human and physical capital accumulation into economic growth. Chapter 5 summarizes the key findings of previous chapters and discusses areas of future research

Estimating the size of the trade sector in the Economic Freedom of the World index

The Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) index measures the extent to which nations allow their citizens economic freedom. The freedom of people to trade internationally is a featured area within the index. One component of this area is the size of the trade sector, or rather the deviation of a country's trade sector from its expected size. This note explains the basic methodology used to estimate the model and create the ratings for the deviation of a country's trade sector from its expected size component of the EFW index.trade sector, economic freedom, distance-adjusted demand

Tuition Increases Geaux Away? Evidence from Voting on Louisiana\u27s Amendment 2

In many states, public institutions of higher education have the autonomy to raise tuition. This has not been the case in Louisiana since a 1995 constitutional amend-ment required a two-thirds majority of the state legislature for any tuition increase. In November of 2016, voters in Louisiana rejected Amendment 2, a constitutional amendment that would have given state institutions of higher education autonomy in setting tuition. We examine parish-level voting on Amendment 2 using an empirical political economy model and find that parishes with a greater percentage of African-Americans and university employees were more likely to vote yes. Student enrollment at public institutions seemingly did not play a role in Amendment 2 losing

The Impact of Marketization on Entrepreneurship in China: Recent Evidence

While marketization has been linked to provincial-level economic growth in China, how marketization leads to growth has not been explored. We hypothesize that marketization creates an environment that encourages entrepreneurship, which manifests itself in economic growth. While this argument is not new, it has not been explored in the Chinese context. We fill this gap by empirically testing the relationship between marketization and measures of entrepreneurship across Chinese provinces. Our primary measures of entrepreneurship are level changes in the number of “private enterprises” and “self-employed individuals”. We find that higher levels of marketization are positively related to higher levels of entrepreneurship. These positive effects are largely driven by three areas of marketization. “Government and market” drives both measures of entrepreneurship, while “Legal frameworks” influences only private enterprises and “ownership structure” influences self-employment

Economic Activity, International Intervention, and Transitional Governance: A Comparative Case Study of Somalia

This paper investigates the impact of international state-building efforts in Somalia on economic development. We use satellite data on night lights to measure economic activity to deal with nonexistent or poor-quality national income accounts. Using the synthetic control method, we find that the establishment of the Transitional Federal Government in 2004 was associated with economic stagnation relative to the years under statelessness. Using nighttime light emissions, we find economic stagnation regardless of whether we use the total lights emitted from the country or the spread of lights across the country. Our empirical findings are consistent with the idea that the exogenously imposed Transitional Federal Government destabilized the country through an incongruity with the informal institutions that had led to development during Somalia\u27s `statelessness.\u2

Growth And Variability Of School District Income Tax Revenues: Is Tax Base Diversification A Good Idea For School Financing?

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145497/1/coep12276_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145497/2/coep12276.pd

The Effect of Transparency, Independence and Accountability of Central Banks on Disinflation Costs

Policymakers often want to achieve low inflation to avoid the low economic growth associated with high inflation. Reducing inflation through monetary policy (disinflation) is not costless as it can coincide with higher unemployment rates and reduced output. In this paper we use sacrifice ratios to calculate the cost of disinflation during the 1990s for 40 countries. We then study whether transparency and democratic accountability of monetary institutions reduces disinflation costs. Our empirical results suggest that more transparent central banks seem to face higher disinflation costs. This result could be because more transparent central banks have lower initial inflation rates during their disinflation episodes. Therefore, reducing inflation even further is more costly to them. We find no significant relationship between independence of central banks and the disinflation costs they faced during 1990s

The Effect of Health Care Entrepreneurship on Local Health: The Case of MedExpress in Appalachia

We test the hypothesis that the opening of an Urgent Care Center (UCC) has positive impacts on the local community. There are several mechanisms through which a UCC can have an impact: lower health care costs, emergency room decongestion, and improved access to medical information. We examine the entry of MedExpress into Appalachian counties between 2001 and 2013. Employing data from Health Resources Files, which provides information for all counties for specific years, we use Propensity Score Matching to create a year 2000 control group for the counties “treated” by MedExpress entry beginning in 2001. We then employ a standard difference-in-difference model on an unbalanced panel between 2001 and 2013. Our results suggest that MedExpress has a positive impact on different health outcome variables