This paper examines the impact of public and private agricultural research andextension on agricultural total factor productivity at the state level. We test the hypothesis thatthe composition of agricultural experiment station funding—share of funding from impact offederal competitive grants...

This paper presents new econometric evidence on state government’s demand for resources to support local agricultural experiment station research. The econometric model consists of a complete-demand system covering four major resource sources, and it is fitted to annual observations on 48...

Some investment advisors offer multiple versions of a fund with the same manager and highlycorrelated returns. But these “twin” funds are separate portfolios for different investors withdiffering abilities to select and monitor managers. Using a matched sample of retail andinstitutional twin...

[...]This article examines the origins and early development ofthe Federal Reserve’s book-entry system—the system mostclosely associated with the elimination of definitive, orcertificated, Treasury securities. We suggest that the Fed’ssystem was the product of three important factors: the...

[...]In this paper, we look at the relationship between these twoissues to examine how government regulation affects thedynamics of the low-income housing stock. We find that,consistent with theoretical models of housing, restrictions onthe supply of new units lower the supply of affordable...

[...]In this article, we attempt to quantify the economic effectsof the homeland security efforts of the public and privatesectors, focusing specifically on the costs of these efforts. Inpractice, it is difficult to classify which expenditures are relatedto homeland security. For this reason, we...

In 1996, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility andWork Opportunity Reconciliation Act, or PRWORA, whichsubstantially restructured public assistance programs.PRWORA gave states almost entire discretion to design andoperate cash assistance programs for families with children,reducing the...

The G20 summits in 2009 have proposed major changes in governance of the InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF). Most important seems to be the acknowledgment that the IMF in itscurrent form lacks legitimacy and ownership. Accordingly, the G20 suggests a reallocation ofvoting shares to emerging and...

We propose a distinction between active waste and passive waste as determinantsof the cost of public services. Active waste entails utility for the publicdecision maker (as in the case of bribery) whereas passive waste does not (asin the case of inefficiency due to red tape). To assess the...

We introduce a model of redistributive income taxation and public expenditure. Thisjoint treatment permits analyzing the interdependencies between the two policies: onecannot be chosen independently of the other. Empirical evidence reveals that partisanconfrontation essentially falls on...