The Impact of Environmental Disamenities on Property Values: Evaluating the Municipal Fringe
By Ryan B. Hoecker
This paper analyzes the municipal fringe of cities in Eastern North Carolina between 2006-2016, and how the values of individual properties on the outskirts can fluctuate after they are
incorporated within a city. A large portion of the research process consisted of manually recreating annexation ordinances from scanned photocopies on ArcGIS, creating the first geographic archive of annexations in North Carolina compatible with digital software. As environmental nuisances, such as landfills and hazardous waste sites, are often located on town borders, this study pays specific attention to how their presence affects the change in property values before and after annexation. Results show that incorporation brings with it higher property values, and that the impact of annexation is greater in the presence of nuisances that threaten water quality for private wells.
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Advisor: Christopher Timmins | JEL Codes: H79, Q53, R31
Japan’s Furusato Nouzei (Hometown Tax): Which Areas Get How Much, and Is It Really Working?
by Kay Hasegawa
Abstract
In 2015, 7,260,093 individuals donated a total of ¥165,291,021,000 (approximately 1.5 billion USD total) to 1,741 municipalities in Japan using the furusato nouzei system (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications). In this paper, I examine this system in two ways. Firstly, I predict the amount of donations each municipality receives based on a number of explanatory variables. Secondly, I run a 2SLS difference-in-differences regression to see if the tax was successfully redistributing wealth from city centers to rural areas, using an increase in municipal-level expenditure as a proxy.
Professor Charles Becker, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: H2, H21, H27
Structural Estimation of FCC Bidder Valuation
By Renhao Tan, Zachary Lim, and Jackie Xiao
We modify a method introduced in Fox and Bajari (2013) which structurally estimates the deterministic component of bidder valuations in FCC spectrum auctions based on a pairwise stability condition: two bidders cannot exchange two licenses in a way that increases the sum of their valuations, and we apply it to C block auctions 5, 22, 35 and 58. Our modifications improve the fit of the Fox and Bajari (2013)’s estimator especially in similar auctions involving big bidders. We find that there is evidence of significant “cross-auction” complementaries between licenses sold in a particular auction and those already owned by these endowed bidders.
Advisor: Michelle Connolly | JEL Codes: D44, D45, H82, L82
Tax Evasion and Tax Morale in Latin America
By Sofia Becerra Taschetti
Tax evasion throughout the world is widely endured, but not widely understood. The decision making process of the taxpayer may include many concerns outside of the monetary payoffs. The tax compliance decision considers social norms and social sanctions in addition to deterrence levels. The goal of this paper is to illuminate some of the social norms and factors that affect tax morale, since tax morale in turn drives part of compliance. An empirical study comparing tax morale in 18 Latin American countries finds that, social factors like perception of evasion by peers, as well as government trust and approval, are significant determinants of tax morale. Moreover, culture also plays a role. However, its role is not nearly as large as believed, and cannot be explained much of the variance across countries. Compliance is partly explained by tax moral, which is partly explained by culture. Tax morale will drive higher compliance all else equal, but compliance is also a function of deterrence, and both factors work in a feedback loop. Social norms and culture develop through assimilation of deterrence mechanism over time and so, culture need not be deterministic since it mutable.
Advisor: Michelle Connolly, Michael Munger | JEL Codes: H2, H26, H31 | Tagged: Argentina, Chile, Latin America, Tax Evasion, Tax Morale
Neighborhood Effects and School Performance: The Impact of Public Housing Demolitions on Children in North Carolina
By Rebecca Aqostino
This study explores how the demolitions of particularly distressed public housing units, through the Home Ownership for People Everywhere (HOPE VI) grants program, have affected academic outcomes for children in adjacent neighborhoods in Durham and Wilmington, North Carolina. I measure neighborhood-level changes and individual effects through regression analysis. All students in demolition communities are compared to those in control communities: census blocks in the same cities with public housing units that were not demolished. Those in the Durham experiment community experienced statistically significant gains when compared to those in the control communities; the effect is insignificant in Wilmington.
Advisor: Charles Becker, Helen Ladd, Marjorie McElroy | JEL Codes: C23, H41, H52, H75, I24, I25 | Tagged: Achievement, Demolitions, Distressed Housing, HOPE VI, Neighborhood Effects, Public Housing, School Performance
The Determinants and Social Benefit of Student Summer Activity: An Analysis of the Determinants of Summer Activity Participation by Elementary and Secondary Students, and the Resulting Social Benefit of Summer Activity Participation on Crime
By Elad Gross
Using data from 1996, this study first identifies the socioeconomic determinants of a child’s participation in an organized summer activity. Models are produced for summer activity in general and for different types of summer activities. The results indicate the importance of caregiver supervisory capability in choosing whether to send a child to a summer program. In the second stage of the project, actual state values of summer activity participation are related to state crime statistics, controlling for the state demographic profile. The results indicate that participation in summer activity is related to a reduction in crime rates under certain conditions.
Advisor: Peter Arcidiacono | JEL Codes: H75
Assessing Abortion The Impact of Legalized Abortion on the Welfare of American Women
by Katherine N. Fisher
Abstract
By examining data on educational attainment, workforce participation, and marriage market bargaining power, this paper assesses the impact of legalized abortion on women’s welfare. Access to abortion is found to increase education levels and employment rates. However, such access may also increase rates of sexually transmitted disease and disadvantage women in the marriage markets. Although negative implications are established, they do not appear strong enough to counteract the positive impacts of abortion access. Legalized abortion is a highly demanded public good, and seems to serve in the best interest of women by empowering them through choice.
Professor Marjorie McElroy, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: H3, I14, K4
Federal Excise Taxes and the U.S. Beer Industry’s Three-Tier System of Distribution: Do beer manufacturers benefit from federal excise taxes?
by Ankur Sunildatta Fadia
Abstract
On January 1, 1991, the federal excise tax on beer increased from $9 to $18 per barrel. Young & Bielinska-Kwapisz (2002) discovered that this $9 per barrel tax increase led to a $15-$17 per barrel increase in the end-of-sale price of beer. No study has yet explained why the beer tax increase was overshifted as it passed through the three tiers, namely manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. I hypothesize that manufacturers cooperate under focal point pricing and pass beer tax increases to distributors and retailers with a markup. Applying Taubman’s (1965) model to the beer industry, I show that manufacturers could have theoretically passed the 1991 beer tax increase with a markup. In support of Taubman’s (1965) model, personal interviews and e-mail exchanges with beer distributors revealed that manufacturers can pass beer tax increases with a markup to both distributors and retailers. PPI and CPI data show that manufacturers and retailers substantially marked up prices to distributors and consumers, respectively. Macrobrewer profit data establish that Anheuser-Busch and Miller’s real net profits between 1990 and 1991 increased, in 1982-84 dollars, by $69 and $3 million, respectively, while Coors’s real net profits decreased by $11 million due to rising costs during its expansion to national production. Since Anheuser-Busch and Miller’s output did not significantly increase but their costs did increase from 1990 to 1991, macrobrewers’ profits could have only increased due to rising prices. Moreover, in a leader-follower game it is expected that profits for the dominant firm, Anheuser-Busch, increase more than profits for fringe firms, Miller and Coors. I accept my hypothesis that manufacturers were responsible for overshifting, and as a whole benefited from, the 1991 beer tax increase.
Professor Phillip J. Cook, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: H2, H21,
