Real local government spending in the United States has increased by 240% between 1972 and 2012, faster than can be explained by population growth (a 48% increase), growth in median household income (a 32% increase), or changes in other economic, demographic, and institutional variables...

This paper examines mean and volatility spillovers between four green municipal bonds issued by the US states of California, Colorado, Columbia and Ohio, and the role played by the recent Covid-19 pandemic and the COP policy announcements respectively. Specifically, four-variate VAR-GARCH-BEKK...

Politicians seeking reelection need voters to know what they have done for them. Thus, incentives may arise to spend more money where media coverage is higher. We present a simple model to explain the allocation of public spending across jurisdictions contingent on media activity. An incumbent...

Immigration policy can have important net fiscal effects that vary by immigrants' skill level. But mainstream methods to estimate these effects are problematic. Methods based on cash-flow accounting offer precision at the cost of bias; methods based on general equilibrium modeling address bias...

We propose a theory of tax centralization and inter governmental grants in politico-economic equilibrium. The cost of taxation differs across levels of government because voters internalize general equilibrium effects at the central but not at the local level. This renders the degree of tax...

This study examines the relationship between healthcare expenditure and disposable income in the 50 US states over the period 1966-2009 using fractional integration and cointegration techniques. The degree of integration and non-linearity of both series are found to vary considerably across...

Between 1960 and 1997, life expectancy at birth of Americans increased approximately 10% G from 69.7 to 76.5 years G and it has been estimated that the value of life extension during this period nearly equaled the gains in tangible consumption. While life expectancy has tended to increase, there...

Over the last decade, the U.S. Medicare program has added new billing codes to enhance the financial rewards for Chronic Care Management and Transitional Care Management. We show that the take-up of these new billing codes is gradual and exhibits substantial variations across markets and...