We examine the cost structure of public schools in this paper, using frontier cost models that enable us to estimate sources of inefficiency. A two equation stochastic frontier model is presented that can be used to explain both cost and the sources of inefficiency. Using that model and data for...

This paper presents a model of the strategic pricing behavior of Chinese cities as they determine how much land to lease and what prices to charge for the land leases. They effectively sell the land asset at a price that may or may not reflect its market value, and in so doing they buy a flow of...

Post-Soviet economies are plagued by a public-sector practice whereby the Ministry of Finance cancels tax liabilities that enterprises owe it in exchange for debts the Ministry owes enterprises. While the practice seems innocuous enough to its practitioners, it has multiple distorting effects....

Tests for the presence of Leviathan, evidenced by a positive relationship between the size of government measured as a percentage of GDP, and the degree of fiscal centralization, have provided mixed results. We derive alternative measures of the size of government taking into account household...

The process of privatizing state owned property assets such as agricultural or manufacturing enterprises is investigated in this paper. An optimal timing model is employed to investigate the question of the best time to privatize a state owned property asset. Beyond the optimal timing question,...

The author analyzes impact fees on developers and suggests that their true incidence may be different from that intended by local governments. The fees may not force new homebuyers to bear the burden of infrastructure improvement costs associated with their homes, which is the result intended by...

This study presents an empirical analysis of individual expressions of confidence in the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) using the World Values Survey-Wave 7 data. The main hypothesis tested is that confidence in each institution is positively associated with alignment...

This paper employs an extensive household survey data set covering a wide range of transition countries to empirically characterize real estate ownership of households. The types of dwellings, housing tenure (own vs rent), second home and land ownership, and mortgage prevalence by household...

This paper provides an assessment of various measures of fiscal sustainability for the Republic of Tajikistan. It begins with an overview of recent estimates of the medium term macroeconomic situation, including various measures of government finance. Measures of fiscal stress indicate that...

The Suites Index is often used in tax policy analysis to measure the degree of progressivity of a tax, or to analyze changes in progressivity under alternative tax regimes. As a point estimator, however, the Index provides researchers with no assistance in assessing whether changes are in fact...