Public Economics 

About: Public Economics is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Public good & Consumption (economics). It has an ISSN identifier of 1373-8496. Over the lifetime, 198 publications have been published receiving 2031 citations.

New Estimates of Government Net Capital Stocks for 22 OECD Countries 1960-2001

Abstract: The issue of whether government capital is productive has received a great deal of recent attention. Yet empirical analyses of public capital productivity have generally been limited to the official capital stock estimates available in a small sample of countries. Alternatively, many researchers have investigated the output effects of public investment- recognizing that investment may be a poor proxy for the corresponding capital stock. This paper attempts to overcome the data shortage by providing internationally comparable capital stock estimates for 22 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.

The Stability and Efficiency of Economic and Social Networks

Abstract: This paper studies the formation of networks among individuals. The focus is on the compatibility of overall societal welfare with individual incentives to form and sever links. The paper reviews and synthesizes some previous results on the subject, and also provides new results on the existence of pairwise-stable networks and the relationship between pairwise stable and efficient networks in a variety of contexts and under several definitions of efficiency.

The Earned Income Tax Credit and the Labor Supply of Married Couples

Abstract: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY L>partment of Economics Berkeley, California 94720-3880 Working Paper No. E99-267 Hie Earned Income Tax Credit and the Labor Supply of Married Couples Nada Eissa University of California, Berkeley and NBER Hilary Williamson Hoynes University of California, Berkeley and NBER April 1999 Keywords: labor supply, welfare, taxes JEL Classification: H24, H31,J22 We are grateful to Alan Auerbach, Ken Chay, David Card, Steve Davis, Stacy Dickert-Conlin, Andrew Hildreth, Tom MaCurdy, Steve Rivkin and to seminar and conference participants at AEE, U.C. Berkeley, Board of Governors, CEA, IRP, Maryland, Michigan, NBER, Northwestern, Oregon State, Stanford and Washington for comments and suggestions. Darren Lubotsky and Doug Schwalm provided excellent research assistance. Hoynes received financial support from National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, and the Department of Health and Human Services. Eissa received financial support from the Institute for Industrial Relations. A earlier draft of this paper was written while Eissa was a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Computing support was provided by the Econometrics Laboratory at U.C. Berkeley. This Draft: November 1998.

The Firms Speak: What the World Business Environment Survey Tells Us about Constraints on Private Sector Development

Abstract: This paper, a synthesis of salient findings of the authors’ book entitled “Investment Climate Around the World: Voices of the Firms from the World Business Environment Survey”, and based on a chapter in “Pathways Out of Poverty: Private Firms and Economic Mobility in Developing Countries”, by G. Fields and G. Pfeffermann, summarizes the salient features of the World Business Environment Survey (WBES). It shows that important dimensions for the climate of business operation and investment can be measured, analyzed, and compared across countries, and that governance is key to the business environment and investment climate. The survey findings suggest that key policy, institutional and governance indicators affect the growth of a firm’s sale and investment and the extent to which firms operate in the unofficial economy. Further, the paper provides empirical support for some commonly held notions, while challenging others. It suggests a link between taxation, financing, and corruption on the one hand, and growth and investment on the other, and it highlights the costs to economies where the state is captured by a narrow set of private interests.

The Porter Hypothesis Revisited: A Literature Review of Theoretical Models and Empirical Tests

Abstract: The debate on the relationship between environmental regulation and competitiveness has been a topic of discussion for a number of years now. As early as 1991, the American economist Michael E. Porter proposed that stringent environmental regulation (under the condition that it is efficient) can lead to win-win situations, in which social welfare as well as the private net benefits of firms operating under such regulation can be increased. This paper analyses the Porter hypothesis with regard to two aspects. Firstly, it will analyse the theoretical reasoning behind the hypothesis by discussing and analyzing the arguments brought forward in favour of and against the hypothesis based on the discussion of different theoretical analyses and models by various authors in the field. Secondly, the paper reviews influential empirical studies trying to test the Porter hypothesis. The analysis of empirical work will allow (at least to some degree) to assess whether theoretical conclusions about the Porter hypothesis are confirmed by empirical research.