Price Of Public Services Research Articles

Unintended Consequences of Property Tax Relief: New York’s STAR Program

New York’s School Tax Relief Program, STAR, provides state-funded property tax relief for homeowners. Like a matching grant, STAR changes the price of public services, thereby altering the incentives of voters and school officials and leading to unintended consequences. Using data for New York State school districts before and after STAR was implemented, we find that STAR resulted in small increases in student performance along with significant decreases in the efficiency with which this performance is delivered and significant increases in school spending and property tax rates. These tax-rate increases magnify existing inequities in New York State’s education finance system.

Who Must Pay Bribes and How Much? Evidence from a Cross Section of Firms

This paper uses a unique data set on corruption containing quantitative information on bribe payments of Ugandan firms. The data have two striking features: not all firms report that they need to pay bribes, and there is considerable variation in reported graft across firms facing similar institutions/policies. We propose an explanation for these patterns, based on differences in control rights and bargaining strength across firms. Consistent with the control rights/bargaining hypotheses, we find that the incidence of corruption can be explained by the variation in policies/regulations across industries. How much must bribe-paying firms pay? Combining the quantitative data on corruption with detailed financial information from the surveyed firms, we show that firms' “ability to pay” and firms' “refusal power” can explain a large part of the variation in bribes across graft-reporting firms. These results suggest that public officials act as price (bribe) discriminators, and that prices of public services are partly determined in order to extract bribes.

The Economics and Politics of the Structure of Public Expenditure

The paper derives a complete system ofdemand equations for public consumptionexpenditures as the outcome of rationalbehaviour in a model where governmentmaximizes expected electoral support. Theallocation of expenditures is found todepend not only on the prices of publicservices and total expenditure and tosatisfy the constraints of demand theory,which have been the focus of attention ofprevious empirical studies of theallocation of public expenditures, but, inaddition, on the prices of privateconsumption goods, the distribution ofvoter incomes and the expected change invoter support from varying the levels ofpublic provision.

Marketización y feminización del mercado de trabajo en Buenos Aires : perspectivas macro y microsociales

Este artículo examina dos perspectivas de los cambios en el mercado de trabajo en Buenos Aires en la última década. La primera es una comparación de la oferta y de la demanda de mano de obra y de los cambios en los niveles de remuneración en el periodo 1991-1997. La segunda presenta la interpretación que hacen mujeres de clase media y popular de esos cambios a través de sus relatos sobre sus prácticas laborales, condiciones de vida y relaciones familiares.Durante el periodo analizado creció la participación femenina, y su patrón de comportamiento económico tendió a asemejarse al masculino aunque en niveles de actividad menores. Así, se caracteriza por una trayectoria continuada en el mercado de trabajo que se inicia al finalizar la escolaridad y se concluye en la edad madura con el retiro, lo cual aparece reflejado en los testimonios de las experiencias femeninas como cambios en su decisión de trabajar o permanecer más tiempo trabajando.El aumento en la desocupación ha significado una transformación sustancial en la vida de la gente. Los cambios en la demanda laboral indican que los puestos de trabajo perdidos son mayoritariamente no calificados y provienen de pequeñas empresas o cuentas propias, afectando comparativamente más a los varones.El microcosmos de la familia es un espejo de los cambios que tuvieron lugar en el conjunto de la sociedad argentina. Las mujeres han ganado espacios en el mercado laboral al trabajar más horas y aceptar remuneraciones y condiciones laborales más desfavorables. La salida de la mujer madura ha respondido a la necesidad de cubrir pérdidas de empleo masculino y (o) caídas en los niveles de ingreso del hogar. El trabajo de los jóvenes parece también, por los testimonios, una respuesta a esa situación. La presión del ajuste económico está volviendo austeras a muchas familias. Los aumentos de precios de los servicios públicos y los impuestos han obligado a la mayoría de las familias cuyos testimonios recogimos a reasignar los gastos: pensar cuánto y qué se come es un cambio grande que adquiere dramaticidad cuando debe recurrirse a la escuela para que almuercen los niños o a la parroquia o centro comunitario para obtener la alimentación familiar.

Demand for Local Public Spending: Evidence from the British Social Attitudes Survey

The British Social Attitudes Survey (BSAS) is a UK-wide survey that provides a rich source of information on individuals attitudes to a variety of topics including locally provided service. In this paper we seek to model answers to questions on attitudes to local authority spending which invite the expression of a private demand for local public spending. A convincing picture has emerged of locally provided public goods as imperfectly congested public goods, with a price elastic and probably income inelastic demand. The view that central government grants may induce voter confusion over tax prices of public services also finds support.

Municipal Demand for Water in Kuwait: Methodological Issues and Empirical Results

This study utilized, for the first time, a demand function for municipal water derived from the Stone‐Geary utility function, thereby permitting explicit consideration of the minimum amount of water necessary for daily needs. Using monthly data from Kuwait, this demand function gave greater price elasticity estimates but smaller income elasticity estimates than those of other countries. It was estimated that the “subsistence” water use level in Kuwait is about 42 L per capita per day and the results suggest that at least in that wealthy country, people do respond to changes in the prices of public services.