COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY ECONOMICS
ECON 720: PUBLIC ECONOMICS
FALL 2014
TuTh 9:30 - 10:45AM, Clark C307, Fall 2014
Instructor:
Office:
Email:
Phone:
Office hour:
Dr. Hsueh-Hsiang Li
C320 Clark Building
hsueh-hsiang.li@colostate.edu
491-6305 (Office)
Tuesdays 11AM-12PM
Course Website: log in at http://ramct.colostate.edu
Course Description
Econ 720 is one of the two courses in the graduate public economics sequence at CSU. This
course focuses primarily on tax and expenditure policy. The topics include
incidence and efficiency cost of taxation, optimal taxation, transfers and welfare programs,
social insurance programs, and behavioral responses (e.g. labor supply, saving) to public
policies.
Prerequisites
First-year graduate microeconomics and econometrics, or equivalent. I will assume that you
are already familiar with the first-year level theory and tools from these sequences and
therefore can read, understand, and discuss academic literature within economics.
General References
A. Atkinson and J. Stiglitz. Lectures in Public Economics. New York: McGraw Hill, 1980.
A. Auerbach, and M. Feldstein. Handbook of Public Economics. Volumes 1-4, Amsterdam:
North Holland, 1985, 1987, 2002, and 2003.
A. Auerbach, R. Chetty, M. Feldstein, and E. Saez. Handbook of Public Economics.
Volumes 5, 2013.
J. Gruber. Public Finance and Public Policy, third edition, 2010.
J. Hindriks and G.D. Myles. Intermediate Public Economics, second edition, 2013.
Grading
Problem Sets (40%)
I will assign two to three problem sets that will be collected and lightly graded. You may
work together on these, but each of you must turn in your own work. Some of the
problems require the use of statistical packages (e.g. Stata) and you shall familiarize
yourself with the tools.
Class Discussion (20%)
Each of you will lead a 15-minute discussion on one of the paper marked with * on the
syllabus.
1 Referee Report (10%)
You should attend the department seminars, and write a referee report to one of the paper
presented in the seminars. You are strongly encouraged to write a referee report on a job
candidate’s paper. This task helps developing your critical thinking skills and provides
constructive feedback to your peers to polish their work before entering the job market.
For references, Prof. Fortin provides a nice guideline on referee reports:
http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/nfortin/econ560/guidereferee.pdf
Research Proposal (30%)
As a graduate student, you are expected to conduct original research. By mid-October,
each of you should develop an original research idea and turn in a one-page research idea
that includes: a research question, why do we care about the question, literature gap, your
contribution, and how you plan to answer this question (including what data and tools that
you consider using). You should discuss this research idea with me no later than the end of
October. Once the research idea is developed, you continue working on the research
proposal which includes an introduction, literature review, and research design. The
deadline for turning in your final research proposal is December 12, 2014, the last day of
the semester.
Grading Scale: Letter Grade Percentage Points
A
AB+
B
BC+
C
D
F
Above 93
90 – 92.9
87 – 89.9
83 – 86.9
80 – 82.9
77 – 79.9
67 – 76.9
60 – 66.9
Below 60
The instructor reserves the right to lower the number of points required for any grade.
Expected Weekly Work Hours
Average daily hours required for taking this course over the semester:
Lectures/Class meetings:
2.5 hours
Reading:
2 hours
Preparation for presentation:
0.5 hour
Problem sets:
2 hour
Research proposal:
2 hour
Total
9 hours
Academic Integrity
2 This course will adhere to the Academic Integrity Policy of the General Catalog and the
Student Conduct Code. As per university policy, "Any student found responsible for
having engaged in academic dishonesty will be subject to academic penalty and/or
University disciplinary action." (General Catalog 2011-2012, 1.6, p.7). Any academic
dishonesty in this course may result in a grade of "F" for the course and may be reported
to the Office of Conflict Resolution and Student Conduct Services.
The General Catalog specifically identifies the following examples of academic
dishonesty: cheating in the classroom, plagiarism, unauthorized possession or disposition
of academic materials, falsification, and facilitation of cases of academic dishonesty.
Plagiarism is defined as follows:
"Plagiarism includes the copying of language, structure, ideas, or thoughts of
another, and representing them as one's own without proper acknowledgment.
Examples include a submission of purchased research papers as one's own work;
paraphrasing and/or quoting material without properly documenting the source."
(General Catalog 2011-2012, 1.6, p. 7).
Accommodations for Students with Disabilities
Students requesting special accommodations should contact Resources for Disabled
Students (RDS) at 970-491-6385. Special accommodations for exams will not be granted
without pre-approval from RDS. If this applies to you, please make arrangements and
contact me immediately so I can provide accommodations to facilitate your learning.
Class Policies:
To provide a class environment where students can focus on learning, I will not tolerate any
form of disruptive in-classroom behavior. Please refrain from carrying on conversation with
your classmates, texting messages, reading newspapers, or conducting any disruptive
behavior while the instructor or any student, or invited guest, is speaking to the entire class.
Please silence your cell phone during the class meetings. Also, if you must occasionally
arrive to class late or leave early, please enter and leave in as non-disrupting manner as
possible.
If you are having any problems with the course, please bring these problems to my
attention. The sooner you come for help, the better. Please use your judgment in asking
questions via email; if you think a question will take more than one exchange or is
algebraically or graphically involved, it would be best for you to meet me in person during
my office hours.
Grievance Procedure
Colorado State University has developed a grievance procedure by which students may
file complaints about a course or an instructor. Students are encouraged to resolve any
concerns informally by contacting their instructor within ten (10) business days of the
3 initial complaint or the complaint/grievance will be deemed untimely. If an informal
resolution cannot be reached, students should contact their advisor for further assistance.
Course Outline and Reading List
Journal abbreviations for the reading list:
AER American Economic Review
Econ Econometrica
JEP Journal of Economic Perspectives
JPE Journal of Political Economy
NTJ National Tax Journal
I.
BPEA
JEL
JHR
JPubE
QJE
Brookings Papers on Economic Activity
Journal of Economic Literature
Journal of Human Resources
Journal of Public Economics
Quarterly Journal of Economics
Tax Incidence
Partial Equilibrium:
** A. Atkinson and J. Stiglitz Lectures on Public Economics, New York: McGraw
Hill. Chapters 6 and 7.
*
R. Chetty, A. Looney, and K. Kroft. “Salience and Taxation: Theory and
Evidence.” American Economic Review 99(4): 1145-1177, 2009. Section V.C.
** L. Kotlikoff and L. Summers. “Tax Incidence,” in A. Auerbach and M.
Feldstein, Volume 2, 1043-1092. Required reading: Sections 0, 1, 2, 3.1, and 4.4.
*
W. Evans, J. Ringel, and D. Stech. “Tobacco Taxes and Public Policy to
Discourage Smoking,” in Tax Policy and the Economy, vol. 13, ed. J. Poterba,
MIT Press: Cambridge, 1999.
*
J. Hastings, and Ebonya Washington. 2010. “The First of the Month Effect:
Consumer Behavior and Store Responses.” American Economic Journal:
Economic Policy, 2(2): 142–62.
J. Rothstein. “Is the EITC as Good as an NIT? Conditional Cash Transfers and
Tax Incidence,” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2(1), February
2010, 177-208.
General Equilibrium:
A. Harberger. “The Incidence of the Corporate Income Tax,” Journal of Political
Economics, 1962, 215-240.
J. Shoven and J. Whalley. “Applied General Equilibrium Models of Taxation
and International Trade,” Journal of Economic Literature, 1984.
** L. Kotlikoff and L. Summers. “Tax Incidence,” in A. Auerbach and M.
Feldstein, Handbook of Public Economics, Volume 2, Sections 2.2.1-2.2.3 and
2.3
Open Economy:
** M. Feldstein and C. Horioka, “Domestic Savings and International Capital
Flows”, Economic Journal, 90(358), June 1980, 314-329.
Asset Price Approach:
** L. Kotlikoff and L. Summers, “Tax Incidence”, in A. Auerbach and M.
Feldstein, Volume 2, 1043-1092, Section 3.1.
4 * D. Cutler, “Tax Reform and the Stock Market: An Asset Price Approach,”
American Economic Review, 78(5), December 1988, 1107-1117, esp. Sections IIII.
* J. Friedman, “The Incidence of the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit: Using
Asset Prices to Assess Its Impact on Drug Makers,” Harvard Kennedy School
Working Paper, 2009.
* L. Linden and J. Rockoff “There Goes the Neighborhood? Estimates of the
Impact of Crime Risk on Property Values from Megan's Laws,” American
Economic Review 98(3): 1103-1127, 2008.
Mandated Benefits:
*
D. Acemoglu and J. Angrist, “Consequences of Employment Protection? The
Case of the Americans with Disabilities Act,’’ Journal of Political Economy
109(5) 915-957, 2001
*
J. Gruber, “The Incidence of Mandated Maternity Benefits,” American
Economic Review, 84(3), June 1994, 622-641.
*
J. Kolstad and A. Kowalski, “Mandate-Based Health Reform and the Labor
Market: Evidence from the Massachusetts Reform,” NBER Working Paper No.
17933, 2012
** L. Summers, “Some Simple Economics of Mandated Benefits,” American
Economic Review, 79(2), May 1989, 177-183.
II. Efficiency and Optimal Taxation
** A. Auerbach, “The Theory of Excess Burden and Optimal Taxation,” in A.
Auerbach and M. Feldstein, Handbook of Public Economics, Volume 1, 61-127.
Amsterdam: North Holland, 1985. Sections 1, 2, 3.1, and 4.
** J. Hausman, “Exact Consumers Surplus and Deadweight Loss,” American
Economic Review, 71(4), September 1981, 662-676.
** R. Chetty. “Is the Taxable Income Elasticity Sufficient to Calculate Deadweight
Loss? The Implications of Evasion and Avoidance,” American Economic
Journal: Economic Policy: 1(2): 31–52, 2009.
*
Diamond, Peter and Emmanuel Saez, “The Case for a Progressive Tax: From
Basic Research to Policy Recommendations,” Journal of Economic
Perspectives, 2011, 165-90.
*
D. Bernheim and A. Rangel, 2009. “Beyond Revealed Preference: ChoiceTheoretic Foundations for Behavioral Welfare Economics,” Quarterly Journal
of Economics, 124(1): pages 51-104.
5 Bernheim, B. Douglas, “Emmanuel Saez: 2009 John Bates Clark Medalist,”
Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer, 2010
Kaplow, Louis, “Taxation,” Handbook of Law and Economics, Vol. 1, A.M.
Polinsky and S. Shavell (eds.), 2007, 647-755
Auerbach, Alan J. and James R. Hines, “Taxation and Economic Efficiency,”
Handbook of Public Economics, Vol. 3, 1347-1421
Ballard, Charles, Donald Fullerton, John Shoven and John Whalley, General
Equilibrium Analysis of U.S. Tax Policies, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1985
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
Parry, Ian W. H. and Kenneth A. Small, “Does Britain or the United States Have
the Right Gasoline Tax?” American Economic Review, September, 2005, 12761289
R. Chetty, “Sufficient Statistics for Welfare Analysis: A Bridge Between
Structural and Reduced-Form Methods,” Annual Review of Economics 1: 451488, 2009.
P. Diamond and D. McFadden, “Some Uses of the Expenditure Function in
Public Finance,” Journal of Public Economics 3 (1974), 3-21.
J. Hausman and W. Newey, “Nonparametric Estimation of Exact Consumers
Surplus and Deadweight Loss,” Econometrica 63 (1995), 1445-1476.
J. Hines, “Three Sides of Harberger Triangles,” Journal of Economic
Perspectives, 13(2), Spring 1999, 167-188.
J. Slemrod, “Optimal Taxation and Optimal Tax Systems,” Journal of Economic
Perspectives, 4(1), Winter 1990, 157-178.
D. Albouy, “The Unequal Geographic Burden of Federal Taxation,” JPE, 2009.
M. Feldstein, “Tax Avoidance and the Deadweight Loss of the Income Tax,”
Review of Economics and Statistics, 81(4), November 1999, 674-680.
6 A. Goolsbee, “The Value of Broadband and the Deadweight Loss of Taxing
New Technologies,” Contributions to Economic Analysis & Policy (B.E. Press
Journals), 5(1), 2006.
L. Goulder and R. Williams. "The Substantial Bias from Ignoring General
Equilibrium Effects in Estimating Excess Burden, and a Practical Solution,"
Journal of Political Economy, 2003, 111:898-927.
J. Marion and E. Muehlegger. “Measuring Illegal Activity and the Effects of
Regulatory Innovation: Tax Evasion and the Dyeing of Untaxed Diesel,”
Journal of Political Economy 116:4, p.633-666, August 2008.
A. Auerbach, “The Theory of Excess Burden and Optimal Taxation,” in A.
Auerbach and M. Feldstein, Handbook of Public Economics, 1985, Volume 1,
61-127, Section 5.
A. Auerbach and J. Hines, “Taxation and Economic Efficiency,” in A. Auerbach
and M. Feldstein, 2002, Handbook of Public Economics, Volume 3, 61-125.
E. Saez, “Using Elasticities to Derive Optimal Income Tax Rates,” Review of
Economics Studies, 68, 2001, 205-229, Sections 1-3 and 5.
B. Salanie, The Economics of Taxation, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003, Chapter 4.
M. Golosov, A. Tsyvinski, and I. Werning “New Dynamic Public Finance: a
User’s Guide,” NBER Macro Annual 2006
C. Chamley, “Optimal Taxation of Capital Income in General Equilibrium with
Infinite Lives,” Econometrica, 54 (1986), 607-622.
E. Farhi and I. Werning, “Inequality, Social Discounting and Estate Taxation”
Journal of Political Economy 115: 365-402, 2007.
M. Feldstein, “The Welfare Cost of Capital Income Taxation,” Journal of
Political Economy 86 (1978), 329-52.
K. Judd, “Redistributive Taxation in a Simple Perfect Foresight Model,” Journal
of Public Economics 28 (1985), 59-83.
N. Kocherlakota, “Zero Expected Wealth Taxes: A Mirrlees Approach to
Dynamic Optimal Taxation,” Econometrica 73, 2005.
III.
Income Taxation and Labor Supply
** J. Hausman "Taxes and Labor Supply", in A. Auerbach and M. Feldstein, eds,
Handbook of Public Finance, Vol I, North Holland 1985, sections 1-3.
7 ** Saez, Emmanuel, Joel Slemrod and Seth Giertz, "The Elasticity of Taxable
Income with Respect to Marginal Tax Rates: A Critical Review," Journal of
Economic Literature, 2012, 50(1): 3-50
*
R. Blundell, A. Duncan and C. Meghir, “Estimating Labor Supply Responses
Using Tax Reforms,” Econometrica 66 (July 1998), 827-862.
*
N. Eissa “Taxation and Labor Supply of Married Women: The Tax Reform Act
of 1986 as a Natural Experiment,” NBER Working Paper 5023, 1995.
*
R. Chetty, J. Friedman, and E. Saez, 2013, “Using Differences in Knowledge
Across Neighborhoods to Uncover the Impacts of the EITC on Earnings”
American Economic Review, 103(7): 2683-2721.
*
Hotz, V. Joseph, Charles H. Mullin and John Karl Scholz, 2005, “The Earned
Income Tax Credit and Labor Market Participation of Families on Welfare,”
mimeo, University of Wisconsin – Madison
*
Meyer, Bruce D. and Dan T. Rosenbaum, 2001, “Welfare, the Earned Income
Tax Credit, and the Labor Supply of Single Mothers,” QJE, CXVI(3), August,
1063-1114
*
Saez, Emmanuel. 2010. "Do Taxpayers Bunch at Kink Points?" American
Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2(3): 180-212.
*
Feldstein, Martin, "The Effect of Marginal Tax Rates on Taxable Income: A
Panel Study of the 1986 Tax Reform," Journal of Political Economy, June 1995,
551-572
*
Gruber, Jonathan and Emmanuel Saez, “The Elasticity of Taxable Income:
Evidence and Implications,” Journal of Public Economics, April 2002
*
M. Bianchi, B. Gudmundsson, and G. Zoega, “Iceland’s Natural Experiment in
Supply-Side Economics,” American Economic Review, 91, December 2001,
1564-1579
*
Emmanuel Saez and Michael R. Veall, “The Evolution of High Incomes in
Northern America: Lessons from Canadian Evidence,” American Economic
Review, June 2005, 95(3), 831-849
*
Goolsbee, Austan, “What Happens When You Tax the Rich? Evidence From
Executive Compensation,” Journal of Political Economy, April 2000, 352-78
D. Card and D. Hyslop. “Estimating the Effects of a Time-Limited Earnings
Subsidy for Welfare Leavers.” Econometrica, 73(6): 1723-1770, November
2005.
J. Pencavel. (1986) "Labor Supply of Men: A Survey," Handbook of Labor
Economics, vol. 1, chapter 1.
8 Killingsworth, M. and J. Heckman (1986), "Labor Supply of Women," in
Ashenfelter and Layard (eds.) Handbook of Labor Economics, Vol. 1, 1986. [C]
R. Blundell and T. Macurdy. (1999) “ Labor supply: a review of alternative
approaches,” in the Handbook of Labor Economics, Volume 3A, O. Ashenfelter
and D. Card, eds.
R. Moffitt, “Welfare Programs and Labor Supply”, in A. Auerbach and M.
Feldstein, Handbook of Public Economics, Volume 4, Chapter 34, Amsterdam:
North Holland, 2003 or NBER Working Paper 9168 September 2002.
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
G. Dahl, K. Løken, and M. Mogstad, "Peer Effects in Program Participation,"
American Economic Review, 104(7), 2014, 2049-74.
N. Eissa and H. Hoynes, “Taxes and the Labor Market Participation of Married
Couples: The Earned Income Tax Credit,” Journal of Public Economics, 88(910), 1931-1958 (2004).
N. Eissa and J. Liebman, “Labor Supply Response to the Earned Income Tax
Credit”, Quarterly Journal of Economics 111 (1996), 605-637
J. Grogger “The Effects of Time Limits, the EITC, and Other Policy Changes on
Welfare Use, Work, and Income Among Female-Headed Families”, Review of
Economic and Statistics, 2004 forthcoming.
Slemrod, Joel, “Methodological Issues in Measuring and Interpreting Taxable
Income Elasticities,” National Tax Journal, December, 1998, 773-88
IV. Taxation and Saving
*
Gale, William G. and John Karl Scholz, "IRAs and Household Saving," AER,
December, 1994, 1233-1260
*
Madrian, Bridget and D. Shea, “The Power of Suggestion: Inertia in 401(k)
Participation and Saving Behavior,” QJE, 116, November 2001, 1149-1187
*
Gale, William G., “The Effects of Pensions on Household Wealth: A ReEvaluation of Theory and Evidence,” JPE, August 1998, 706-723
9 * Bernheim, B. Douglas, Jonathan Skinner and Steven Weinberg, “What Accounts
for the Variation in Retirement Wealth Among U.S. Households?” AER, 91
(2001), 832-857
*
Scholz, John Karl, Ananth Seshadri, and Surachai Khitatrakun, “Are Americans
Saving ‘Optimally’ for Retirement?” JPE, 114(4), August 2006, 607-643
Scholz, John Karl and Ananth Seshadri, "Children and Household Wealth,"
mimeo, 2009
Scholz, John Karl and Ananth Seshadri, "Health and Wealth in a Lifecycle
Model," mimeo, 2010
Hurst, Erik, “The Retirement of a Consumption Puzzle,” in Recalibrating
Retirement Spending and Saving (eds. John Americks and Olivia Mitchell),
2007
Venti, Steve and David Wise, "Have IRAs Increased U.S. Saving? Evidence
from Consumer Expenditure Surveys," QJE, 1990, pp. 661-698
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. And Karen M. Pence, “Are Successive Generations Getting
Wealthier, and If So, Why?” BPEA, 2006(1), 155-234
Hubbard, Glenn, Jon Skinner, and Steve Zeldes, "The Importance of
Precautionary Motives in Explaining Individual and Aggregate Saving," JPE,
April, 1995, 360-399
Engen, Eric M., William G. Gale and Corrie E. Uccello, “The Adequacy of
Household Saving,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1999 (2), 65-165
Banks, James, Richard Blundell, and Sarah Tanner, “Is There a RetirementSavings 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
10 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
V. The Corporate Income Tax, Capital Structure and Other Aspects of Financial
Policy
** Chetty, Raj and Emmanuel Saez, “Dividend Taxes and Corporate Behavior:
Evidence from the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut,” QJE, August 2005, 70(3), 791-833
Auerbach, Alan J., “Taxation and Corporate Financial Policy,” Handbook of
Public Economics, volume 3. 1251-1292
Auerbach, Alan J., “Who Bears the Corporate Tax? A Review of What We
Know,” in J. Poterba (eds.) Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 20 (2006), 1 –
40, or NBER Working Paper #11686 (2005)
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
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
11 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
VI. Income Transfer Programs
*
Scholz, John Karl, Robert Moffitt, and Benjamin Cowen, “Trends in Income
Support,” in Changing Poverty, M. Cancian and S. Danziger (eds.), Russell Sage
Foundation, forthcoming
*
Hastings, Justine, and Ebonya Washington. 2010. "The First of the Month
Effect: Consumer Behavior and Store Responses." American Economic Journal:
Economic Policy, 2(2): 142-62.
*
Saez, Emmanuel, “Optimal Income Transfer Programs: Intensive versus
Extensive Labor Supply Responses,” QJE, August 2002, 1039-1073
M. Bitler, J. Gelbach, and H. Hoynes, “What Mean Impacts Miss: Distributional
Impacts of Welfare Reform Programs,” American Economic Review, 2006.
12 Janet Currie, Jayanta Bhattacharya and Steven Haider, "Breakfast of
Champions? The Effects of the School Breakfast Program on the Nutrition of
Children and their Families," Journal of Human Resources, 41,3, Summer 2006.
G. Akerlof, “The Economics of Tagging as Applied to the Optimal Income
Tax,” American Economic Review, 68(1), March 1978, 8-19.
T. Besley and S. Coate, “Public Provision of Private Goods and the
Redistribution of Income,” American Economic Review, 81(4), September 1991,
979-984.
T. Besley and S. Coate, “Workfare versus Welfare: Incentives Arguments for
Work Requirements in Poverty-Alleviation Programs,” American Economic
Review, 82(1), March 1992, 249-261.
S. Coate, “Altruism, the Samaritan’s Dilemma, and Government Transfer
Policy,” American Economic Review, 85(1), March 1995, 46-57.
A. Nichols and R. Zeckhauser, “Targeting Transfers Through Restrictions on
Recipients,” American Economic Review, 72(2), May 1982, 372-377.
E. Saez, “Optimal Income Transfer Programs: Intensive Versus Extensive Labor
Supply Responses,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 117 (2002), 1039-1073.
B. Salanie, The Economics of Taxation, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003, Chapter 8.
H. Varian, “Redistributive Taxation as Social Insurance,” Journal of Public
Economics, 14 (1980), 49-68.
R. Zeckhauser “Optimal Mechanisms for Income Transfer” American Economic
Review, 61(3), June 1971
Fang, Hanming and Michael P. Keane, “Assessing the Impact of Welfare
Reform on Single Mothers,” BPEA, 2004(1), 1-116
Blank, Rebecca, “Evaluating Welfare Reform in the U.S.,” JEL, December
2002, 1105-1166
Moffitt, Robert, “Economic Effects of Means-Tested Transfers in the U.S.,” Tax
Policy and the Economy, 2002, 1-35
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
13 Scholz, John Karl and Robert Moffitt, “Trends in the Level and Distribution of
Income Support,” in Tax Policy and the Economy, forthcoming
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
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14 Daponte, Beth Osbourne, Seth Sanders and Lowell Taylor, “Why Do LowIncome Households Not Use Food Stamps? Evidence from an Experiment,”
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VII.
Social Insurance
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15 Feldstein, Martin and Jeffrey Liebman, “Social Security,” Handbook of Public
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About Social Security Systems,” mimeo, September 1999
17