Financing local public goods is a major issue in many communities, especially those that have experienced rapid growth. This paper analyzes problems associated with locally collected real property taxes where the real property tax base is only revaluated at long time intervals. Using counties in...

Previous empirical studies of school choice have been at the national level, or have focussed on northeastern states. We estimate the demand for private education in rural Georgia, using proportion of private school attendance as an indicator variable. We find that income, tuition, race and...

Do cost considerations justify the current structure of production of extension services in which one or more providers exists in virtually all of the contiguous U.S. states? Provision of extension services has sizable cost implications for the host institutions. Yet, to our knowledge, there has...

The effects of structural shifts in the treatment of intergovernmental aid during the 1980s are tested using a sample of 1,929 rural counties with local road responsibilities. A dynamic model is used to test the hypothesis that local public officials treated intergovernmental aid differently...

Many seasonal workers are housed in transitory accommodations, including tents and vehicles. In this study, we analyze the supply side of this problem by assuming that a public agent must house the workers through direct public investment. A peak load model is adapted to develop investment rules...

While a substantial amount of research has been devoted to showing what social capital does, research explaining social capital itself lags behind. The literature has a long tradition of examining the effect of social capital on local economic growth and development. In this paper we examine...

In response to nutria-linked degradation of much of its coastal wetlands, Louisiana established the Coastwide Nutria Control Program (CNCP) in January 2002. CNCP instituted, among other things, an ‘‘economic incentive payment’’ of $4.00 per delivered nutria tail from...

The impacts of economic and demographic variables on the demand for food grain commodities in urban Jiangsu province of China are estimated, using both the QUAIDS and the AIDS models. Results show that the demands for wheat flour and coarse grains are price-elastic while the demands for rice and...

We develop measures of technical and allocative efficiency of producers in marketing certified organic products. A stochastic output distance frontier and the associated revenue share equations are estimated using comprehensive U.S. data on certified organic producers. Farm-level measures of...

This article explores the similarities, differences, and implications from the 1970s–1980s experience for the macroeconomic dynamic that may arise from the 2008 price spike and subsequent recession. Role of monetary policy (deviations from Taylor rule) is assessed. This is an argument...