Cleanup of leaking underground storage tank (LUST) sites has been a priority for the United States of America (USA) for more than 20 years due to the large number of sites, the potential harmful health affects associated with gasoline components and the fact that single owners may not have the ability to pay for cleanup of these sites. In June 2006, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that of the 459,637 confirmed releases from USTs that had occurred previously, 342,688 had been remediated, which leaves 116,949 sites yet to be completed across the USA. Petroleum cleanup programs tend to be managed at the State level; however, there are wide variations among State programs in terms of information access, risk perception and funding availability. While each of the Federal and State UST programs has evolved to meet specific requirements, there has not been a comprehensive comparison of the individual State programs.In this thesis, State petroleum cleanup programs across the USA are evaluated to determine similarities and differences in an effort to identify factors that affect petroleum cleanup progress. Many parameters enter the equation in determining petroleum cleanup effectiveness. Not only are the parameters of the State program operation important, but also the characteristics of each State, including drinking water source and perceived risk associated with petroleum contamination, factor into the determination.A representative group of States and State petroleum cleanup programs were evaluated and the characteristics of States were compared to cleanup progress to determine factors affecting efficiency. Based on trend analysis the cleanup levels for toluene, ethylbenzene and total xylenes correlate directly to the cost of LUST site cleanup. For States with less perceived risk from petroleum contamination, the cleanup goals are less stringent; therefore, fewer resources and less time are required to complete site cleanup. Consequently, petroleum cleanup in States with less-stringent goals is achieved more efficiently. The knowledge of these drivers of efficient petroleum cleanup can be used to expeditiously pursue completion of the thousands of sites remaining across the USA.

中國大陸在近幾十年來的經濟成長舉世矚目，卻也造成了中國大陸東西部發展不平均的隱憂。有鑑於此，江澤民在1999 年的「中央扶貧開發會議」上首次提出了「西部大開發」戰略概念，期能縮小區域發展不均衡的差距。西部大開發預計進行50 年分三個階段進行，截至2010 年已經完成了第一階段。在這十年間，整個西部地區有著巨大的改變。 　　因此，本文的研究目的在於，利用大陸西部12 個省、市、地區自2000 至2010年的追蹤資料，再運用Tobit實証模型進行實證分析。其實證結果顯示，財政地方分權程度、人口密度、地區生產總值、地方政府規模以及地區開放程度等因素，對地方政府效率值之影響為正向；而財政地方分權程度之平方項與地方政府規模之平方項，則對地方政府效率具有負向影響，即財政地方分權與地方政府規模對於地方政府效率之影響可能呈現非單調性。 / The economic growth of China has increased rapidly in recent several decades, but thisgrowth has resulted in the imbalance between the eastern and western region. According tothis situation, Zemin Jiang first proposed the “Grand Western Development Program” in the“central poverty alleviation and development conference” in 1999, hoping to reduce the imbalance in the regional development gap. After carrying out the Grand Western Development Program, the growth ranges of GDP per capita in some of regions have risen quickly. Therefore, the research purpose of this literature is to analyze the empirical estimation of the Tobit model with the panel data which include 12 provinces, cities, and regions in China western area from 2000 to 2010. The empirical results show that the degree of fiscal decentralization, the density of population, gross regional product, the scale of local government, and the degree of openness all have positive influences on the efficiency of local governments. However, the quadratic terms of the degree of fiscal decentralization and the scale of local government have negative influences on the efficiency of local governments. That is to say, the degree of fiscal decentralization and the scale of local government probably have non-monotonic effects on the efficiency of local governments.

人類慾望無窮而資源有限，所以如何將資源做最有效的使用一直是經濟學所追求的課題。有關效率的規範分析中，巴瑞圖最適（Pareto optimality）為接受度最高的準則。基於巴瑞圖效率的觀點，不論是營利組織或非營利組織其經營之基本理念皆是希望以最少的投入獲得最大的產出，因此衡量投入與產出間之相對表現即為效率的評估。非營利組織及公共部門因為有許多產出、投入不易量化，故其效率不易評定。此一情況一直到DEA（Data Envelopment Analysis；資料包絡分析法）發展才逐漸改善。另外，有關DEA的運用幾乎都集中在個別決策單位的效率衡量，將之應用在衡量總體經濟的表現上非常少見。所以論文第肆章是按傳統方式以DEA衡量我國地方政府的效率並分析造成效率差異的原因，第參章則將DEA的概念應用於經濟成長上，探討使經濟成長達到極大化之租稅負擔及租稅結構。又效率的追求為經濟學的主軸，但中央政府的效率目標與地方政府並不相同，由於目標不同，因此彼此所訂的租稅政策亦不相同。本文第伍章試圖提出一理論模型說明中央政府在面對異質地區的垂直外部性下如何有效率的訂定其租稅政策。 / The human desires are infinite but resources are scarce. Using resources effectively is the topic of the economics. In efficient analyses, the Pareto optimality is the highest criterion to accept. Based on Pareto efficiency, the basic idea is to obtain the most outputs by the least inputs. Therefore the efficiency measurement is to calculate the relative performance of inputs and outputs. The nonprofit organization and the public agencies have many outputs and inputs not easy to be quantified; hence, their efficiency is not easy to evaluate. This phenomenon doesn’t improve until DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) was developed. However, the application of DEA concentrates nearly on the efficiency measurement of individual policy-making unit; the application is be rarely used in measuring the performance of the macro-economy. Chapter 4 of this dissertation measures and explains the variation in cost efficiency of the local governments in Taiwan area. Chapter 3 deals with the application the DEA to economic growth, estimating a combination of the tax burden(the ratio of tax revenue to GDP）and the tax structure(the ratio of indirect taxes to direct taxes)which would maximize the rate of growth of GDP of Taiwan. Efficiency is the core of economics, but the national government’s efficient goal is not as same as the local government’s. Because their goals are not consistent, thus the tax policies are different. Chapter 5 attempts to propose a theoretical model to explain how a national or federal government decides its tax policy in the vertical externalities happening in heterogeneous states.