Standard open economy macro models with unemployment predict a contractionary short-run effect of international capital inflows. Empirical evidence, on the other hand, often associates such inflows with short-term booms, and developing country policy makers frequently go out of their way to...

This paper explores (dis-)economies of scale in property value assessment via cooperative agreements among small tax assessing jurisdictions without consolidation. New York State incentivizes small neighboring towns to unify their assessment function while maintaining respective tax authority;...

Voters dealing with jurisdictional merger decisions face a trade-off between economies of scale and preference costs. Larger jurisdictions may offer cost advantages, yet the downside is that policies in larger units may be less aligned to voter preferences. Our study is the first to provide...

This article examines the empirical performance of alternative frontier estimators' ability to replicate a known underlying technology and economic measures such as multi-product and product-specific economies of scale, and economies of scope. A cross sectional Monte Carlo procedure to simulate...

When comparing economic well-being using income or expenditures, an equivalence scale is often used to adjust for differences in characteristics that affect needs. For example, a family of two is assumed to need more income than a single person, but not twice as much due to the economies of...