Health care spending in the United States is a major concern and is higher than in other high-income countries, but there is little evidence that efforts to reform US health care delivery have had a meaningful influence on controlling health care spending and costs.

Health care spending in the United States and other high-income countries

This paper characterizes optimal labor-income taxes that depend on age, household assets, and filing status (one or two earners) within a life-cycle model with heterogeneous, two-member households and endogenous human capital. The key innovation is a labor supply elasticity that varies endogenously among households. I find that tax distortions should be hump shaped in age, decrease in household assets, and be lower for joint relative to single filers. Age and assets act as complements within the optimal tax policy. In contrast, filing status neither complements nor crowds out the age and asset tag. Overall, a tax system using all three tags can increase consumption up to 6.4 percent and welfare up to 1.5 percent.

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A Road Map for Efficiently Taxing Heterogeneous Agents

This article is a rejoinder to comments by Ronald J.M.M. Does, Jeroen de Mast; and Marit Schoonhoven on the authors' article "An Emerging Science of Improvement in Health Care," Quality Engineering, Volume 27, Number 1 (January 2015), pages 17-34.

Rejoinder of "An Emerging Science of Improvement in Health Care"

Nonprofit charitable organizations are exempt from most taxes, including local property taxes, but U.S. cities and towns increasingly request that nonprofits make payments in lieu of taxes (known as PILOTs). Strictly speaking, PILOTs are voluntary, though nonprofits may feel pressure to make them, particularly in high-tax communities. Evidence from Massachusetts indicates that PILOT rates, measured as ratios of PILOTs to the value of local tax-exempt property, are higher in towns with higher property tax rates: a one percent higher property tax rate is associated with a 0.2 percent higher PILOT rate. PILOTs appear to discourage nonprofit activity: a one percent higher PILOT rate is associated with 0.8 percent reduced real property ownership by local nonprofits, 0.2 percent reduced total assets, and 0.2 percent lower revenues of local nonprofits. These patterns are consistent with voluntary PILOTs acting in a manner similar to low-rate, compulsory real estate taxes.

Are PILOTs Property Taxes for Nonprofits

An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back

Strategies to Implement Efficient Closing Cycles by Mary C. Scott MBA, Webster University, 2004 BS, University of the Ozarks, 1996 Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Business Administration

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Mary Christine Scott

Papers

Strategies to Implement Efficient Closing Cycles