Thesis (PhD(Economics))-University of Pretoria, 2007. / Abstract in English. Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Marburg.

Most of the people in Western Europe and North America live in towns. One hundred and fifty years ago only one person in five, in Britain, and one in twenty-five in the U.S.A. lived in urban settlements. The growth of the modern town dates from the Industrial Revolution and was accelerated by improvements in transportation systems, which have allowed it to extend its influence over an ever growing area. A large number of the social problems facing society today arise within the context of the urban area. High density living, traffic congestion, and noise, are all aspects of consumption externalities or social costs. Local markets in imbalance characterise a large number of urban areas. The disequilibrium of local housing markets, local labour markets, and local product markets is a common feature of a large number of modern towns and cities. Very little, however, is ever said by the economist about the imbalances in the public sector of urban areas. Individuals complain about poor housing standards, poor educational facilities, poor health and welfare services and the problems of crime in cities. The rate-payers' or local taxpayers' revolution, which is frequently reported, testifies to the importance of the local public sector. This thesis attempts to redress the imbalance. Local government expenditures (excluding debt interest) accounted for 16% of GNP in 1970. This figure compares with 3.4% in 1890 and 9.6% in 1950. As a proportion of total public expenditure local government expenditures were 24.8% of the total in 1950 and 34.7% in 1970. In 1970,10% of the working population of the U.K. were employed by local governments. Local government has been one of the fastest growing sectors of the U. K. economy in the post war period. However, it is a sector of the U.K. economy which has escaped, almost entirely, the interest of the economist, even although it is such an important allocator of the nation's resources. Gramlich (97) makes the point clearly in the context of the U.S.A.: - "The recent spate of large econometric models has probed into many previously unexplored corners of the United States' economy. But there is one sector still relatively untouched by the model builders and strangely enough, it is a sector which today is generating some of the most heated political controversy - that of state and local governments." (p 163).

Thesis (MS)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2008. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: David E. Buschena. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-62).

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 23, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Dr. Douglas J. Miller. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.B.A.) Naval Postgraduate School, Dec. 2004. / Thesis Advisor(s): Lawrence R. Jones. Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-64). Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Colorado State University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation consists of three essays in applied microeconomics. Each chapter covers a large category of public spending in the US: (1) health care; (2) social insurance; and (3) education. This dissertation aims to understand the determinants of efficient delivery of public programs, focusing on disadvantaged subpopulations. The first chapter looks at the effectiveness of health care systems. Medicaid, the largest public health insurance program in the US, has transitioned from a fee-for-service system (FFS) primarily administered by the government to a managed care system (MMC) administered by private insurers over the last few decades. I examine how hospitals' responses to financial incentives under these two systems affect hospital costs and newborn health outcomes. I analyze the universe of inpatient discharge records across New York State from 1995-2013, totaling 4.5 million births. First, I exploit an arbitrary determinant of MMC enrollment: infants weighing less than 1,200 grams were excluded from MMC and were instead served through FFS. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that newborns enrolled in MMC stayed fewer days in hospitals and thus had less expensive visits relative to newborns enrolled in FFS. The cost difference is driven by birth hospitals retaining more newborns enrolled in FFS while transferring away those enrolled in MMC. I find that MMC had limited impacts on newborn health, measured by in-hospital mortality and hospital readmission. Hospitals tended to transfer out MMC newborns only when a high-quality hospital was nearby, which resulted in these infants receiving uncompromised care. Second, I exploit county-level rollout of the MMC mandate to examine impacts on the full population of infants using a difference-in-difference design. I find that hospitals achieved a similar rate of cost savings as for infants over the 1,200-gram threshold, while length of stay, the probability of transfer, and mortality did not change following the mandate. This finding suggests that there are alternative, successful methods by which hospitals reduce costs under MMC, including for high-risk deliveries. The second chapter argues that wealth uncertainty influences when couples choose to retire. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, I show that wives delay retirement when their husbands retire following a job loss. This effect is stronger when husbands are the primary earners, and couples are relatively poorer. This provides evidence of intra-household insurance that mitigates the impact of an unexpected earnings shock. I find that wives tend to delay retirement only until they become eligible for Social Security. This suggests that Social Security benefits can relax households' budget constraints and allow wives to join their husbands in retirement. The third chapter focuses on heterogeneity in grade retention decisions in New York City public schools. Performance on proficiency exams can be a key determinant of whether students are retained or "held back" in their grade. We find female students in New York City are 25% more likely to be retained in their grade due to exam failure than boys. Hispanic students are 60% more likely and Black students 120% more likely to be retained due to exam failure (relative to White students). Poverty and previous poor performance also increase the likelihood of retention, while being young for grade or short does not. We conclude that "patterned discretion" exists in how standardized test results are utilized.

The debate over the role and the size of state activity in public economics remains controversial despite more than a century of active research. As a result, several explanations have been suggested to explain the expansion of the size of the public economy and a large amount of literature has been produced. In the late 19th century, the German economist Adolph Wagner predicted that economic development would be accompanied by a relative growth in the public sector. This thesis argues that the way the Wagner Hypothesis has been interpreted in the existing literature has been incomplete both on theoretical and empirical grounds. Data shows that the independent variable is an important determinant of the growth of government share in income. This result is generally consistent with the WH and lends support to the logistic and the Gompertz processes of government growth. Following discussion, the principal conclusion is that the rise of the share of government expenditure in income in the cross section sample of 88 countries can be partly explained by the changes in the levels of real GDP per capita for those countries. The thesis concludes with a discussion of some of the implications of these results and suggestions for further research. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 86 p. : ill. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-81).