Do non-profit hospitals provide more charity care when faced with a mandatory minimum standard? Evidence from Texas

Policymakers often question whether not-for-profit (NFP) hospitals provide enough charity care to justify tax advantages. In 1993, Texas enacted legislation requiring NFP hospitals to provide certain community benefits at levels set forth in specific criteria to retain tax-exempt status; this paper focuses on the effect of the legislation’s requirement that NFP hospitals spend a minimum of 4% of net patient revenue on charity care. We also study a modification of the law passed in 1995, which allows the deduction of bad debts expense when calculating net patient revenue. This change effectively lowers required charity care spending, and our study considers whether Texas hospitals responded by reducing charity care spending.     

The role of federal funding on the demand for state and local government spending

Federal aid to state and local governments lowers the perceived tax price of state and local government output and, in this way, affects the demand for state and local government. After reviewing some theoretical models, an empirical investigation using data from 1960–89 shows that federal aid makes the demand for state and local government spending more income-elastic. State and local government expenditures have grown more rapidly than federal government expenditures since 1960 and there is some empirical support for the idea that federal aid was an important contributing factor.     

Pampered Bureaucracy,Political Stability and Trade Integration

This paper examines the effect of trade integration and comparative advantage on one of a country's institutions, which in turn influences its economic efficiency. The environment we explore is one in which a country's lower classes may revolt and appropriate wealth owned by a ruling elite. The elite can avert revolution by incentivizing a potentially productive middle class to sink their human capital into a relatively unproductive bureaucracy. Thus the bureaucracy serves as an institution through which the elite can credibly commit to make transfers to the rest of society, but in the process this reduces economic efficiency. Trade integration alters the relative value of the elite's wealth. This alters the lower classes’ incentive to revolt on the one hand and the elite's incentive to subsidize participation in the inefficient bureaucracy on the other. Therefore, the interaction between a country's comparative advantage and an inefficient economic institution determines whether trade integration increases or reduces economic efficiency. The econometric findings support the model's main prediction.     

Monetization and growth in colonial New England, 1703–1749

We examine econometrically the real effects of paper money's introduction into colonial New England over the 1703–1749 period. Departing from earlier analyses that focus primarily on the depreciation of paper money in the region, we show that expansion of the money stock promoted growth in modern sector activity and not the other way around. We also find that bills emitted for seigniorage purposes had a positive effect on the modern sector, while bills issued through loan banks did not.     

Does anti-bribery enforcement deter foreign investment?

This article presents the first empirical evidence that bilateral fixed capital flows fall in response to anti-bribery enforcement actions. We hand-collect data on individual enforcement actions initiated by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and show that anti-bribery enforcement in a country is followed by a 40% reduction in foreign fixed capital investments made by US companies in that country.     

A comparison of aggregation methods for measures of economic freedom

Empiricists have used various editions of an economic freedom index (EFI) initially developed by Gwartney et al. (1996) [Gwartney, J., Lawson, R., Block, W., 1996. Economic Freedom of the World: 1975–1995. Fraser Institute, Vancouver.] to examine the relationship between economic freedom and other socio-economic variables, such as growth or investment. The EFI quantifies the level of particular institutional characteristics thought to promote economic freedom and aggregates them into a single index value. The aggregation procedures utilized by Gwartney and Lawson in developing their index have changed over time and other scholars have promoted alternative methods. We examine several index aggregation procedures and show that each design may have potential methodological flaws that can greatly affect the empirical findings.     

Economic freedom and the mispricing of single-state municipal bond closed-end funds

The Economic Freedom of North America Index (EFI) is a measure of the state-level institutional characteristics that promote economic activity. We use this index as a proxy for the degree of local market segmentation and test the hypothesis that single-state, municipal bond closed-end fund mispricing can be partially explained by a state’s EFI value. Using panel data analysis we find that EFI is significant in explaining observed variability in fund mispricing.     

Why Principal is Costly in Politics

The political 'horse-trading' which David Stockman encountered in American politics is a feature of 'representative democracy' throughout the world, and is as readily susceptible to economic analysis as is trading in conventional markets. Professor Richard Stroup of Montana State University examines the pressures on buyers and sellers in the political market.     

Telephone number distribution: a snapshot at the beginning of 2000

The United States is depleting its stock of telephone numbers for assignment to telecommunications carriers. If current trends continue the industry could run out of numbers as soon as 2015. There is little empirical examination of this problem in the economics literature. This analysis examines the distribution of telephone numbers across the United States and quantifies the effects of several key factors. The authors examine the effects that population density, competition for local telephone service, wireless telephone service provision and rate exchange area consolidation have on telephone number assignment.