Housing Quality and the Structure Tax: Evidence from Microdata

In a previous study [13] I showed theoretically that housing quality will rise when the structure tax rate falls if capital is a noninferior input. This result was supported empirically with aggregate SMSA-level data. The present study reports empirical confirmation with microdata more appropriate for the theoretical hypothesis. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

The Effects of Local Government Expenditure and Property Taxes on Investment

The effect of local government property taxes and expenditures on investment in housing and manufacturing plant and equipment is analyzed in theoretic model and tested empirically. An investment model of firm behavior is developed and implications regarding the effects are deduced. These implications are tested in a single equation model of investment in single- and multifamily structures and capital investment in manufacturing in eleven urban cities and their eighty-nine suburbs. Tentative conclusions that additional municipal expenditures increase investment and a higher effective property tax rate diminishes it are supported and that cities have on average exhausted the "net" benefits of increasing balanced budgets. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

Credence Goods, Efficient Labelling Policies, and Regulatory Enforcement

We analyse the optimality of information revelation of hidden attributes of “credence goods” via alternative labelling procedures. When consumers are heterogeneous in their willingness to pay for the hidden attribute, producers can either self-label their products, or have them certified by a third party. The government can impose self or third party labelling requirements on either the “green” or the “brown” producers. Our benchmark model develops a condition that links the optimal imposition of third party labelling to the relative market share of each type of the good under complete information. We extend our analysis to incorporate asymmetric information and cheating by the producers. When corrupt producers can affix spurious labels, the government needs to supplement the labelling policy with costly monitoring activities. We find that mandatory self-labelling schemes generally dominate mandatory third party labelling, unless the “market share effect” greatly exceeds the “incentive-to-cheat effect”. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2007corruption, credence goods, eco-labelling, monitoring, self-labelling, third party labelling, Q58, L15, D82,

The Pitfalls of International Integration: A Comment on the Bush Proposal and its Aftermath

In January 2003, the Bush Administration proposed a new system for taxing corporate dividends, under which domestic shareholders in U.S. corporations would not be taxed on dividends they received, provided the corporation distributed these dividends out of after-tax earnings (the “Bush Proposal”). The Bush Proposal was introduced in Congress on February 27, 2003. Ultimately, however, Congress balked at enacting full-fledged dividend exemption. Instead, in the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (“JGTRRA”) as enacted on May 28, 2003, a lower rate of 15% was adopted for dividends paid by domestic and certain foreign corporations, 1 and the capital gains rate was likewise reduced to 15%. Significantly and in stark contrast to the original Bush proposal, under JGTRRA the lower rate for dividends and capital gains does not depend on any tax being paid at the corporate level.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46092/1/10797_2005_Article_6397.pd