Alternative hypotheses exist regarding the impact of local sales and income taxes on local governments’ taxing and spending decisions. One hypothesis is that local governments use sales and income taxes to pay for spending increases and leave property tax collections unchanged, while an...

In the U.S. teen mothers are more likely to give birth to low birth weight babies than non-teen mothers. There is also substantial evidence that smoking is a risk factor correlated with low birth weight. Low birth weight is a costly outcome in both the short and long term for parents, children,...

This study examines the possible link between the current trend to reduce availability of abortion services and the incidence of low birthweight births. Using current data on births and abortions in Atlanta and New York City, we update and expand the earlier empirical results of Grossman and...

Teen mothers in the United States are more likely to give birth to low birth weight babies. Substantial evidence indicates that smoking is a risk factor correlated with low birth weight. Low birth weight is a costly outcome for parents, children, and society at large. This paper examines the...

This article presents estimates of the effect of private school competition on public school performance. Using data on school districts in Georgia, the authors estimate models relating tenth- and third-grade test scores for either reading or mathematics to the level of private school...

We add to the small literature on private school supply by exploring exits of K–12 private schools. We find that the closure of private schools is not an infrequent event and use national survey data from the National Center for Education Statistics to study closures of private schools. We...

A study of the effect over time of the differential tax treatment of married and unmarried taxpayers. Measures the rate at which females marry and the timing of marriages, but finds no support for the assertion that the marriage tax negatively affects the timing of marriages.

We estimate the costs of performing property tax as-sessments using a translog cost function over a sample of 138 county-level assessment offices in Georgia. We find that there are substantial economies of scale. For example, computed at the sample means, a ten percent increase in the volume of...