American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7731 1945-774X American Economic Journal: Economic Policy http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-pol/ 1 2 August 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=POL&volume=1&issue=2 Journal Article Front Matter i ii http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/pol.1.2.i 10.1257/pol.1.2.i American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7731 1945-774X American Economic Journal: Economic Policy http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-pol/ 1 2 August 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=POL&volume=1&issue=2 Journal Article Crowded Colleges and College Crowd-Out: The Impact of Public Subsidies on the Two-Year College Market Stephanie RieggCelliniGeorge Washington U 1 30 This study assesses the impact of an increase in funding for public community colleges on the market for two-year college education, considering both the effect on community college enrollments and on the number of proprietary schools in a market. I draw on a new administrative dataset of for-profit colleges in California and votes on local community college bond referenda to implement a unique regression discontinuity design. The results suggest that bond passage diverts students from the private to the public sector and causes a corresponding decline in the number of proprietary schools in the market. (JEL H75, I22, I23) http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/pol.1.2.1 10.1257/pol.1.2.1 http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/pol/data/2008-0006_data.zip American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7731 1945-774X American Economic Journal: Economic Policy http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-pol/ 1 2 August 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=POL&volume=1&issue=2 Journal Article Is the Taxable Income Elasticity Sufficient to Calculate Deadweight Loss? The Implications of Evasion and Avoidance RajChettyHarvard U 31 52 Martin Feldstein's (1999) widely used taxable income formula for deadweight loss assumes the marginal social cost of evasion and avoidance equals the tax rate. This condition is likely to be violated in practice for two reasons. First, some of the costs of evasion and avoidance are transfers to other agents. Second, some individuals overestimate the costs of evasion and avoidance. In such situations, excess burden depends on a weighted average of the taxable income and total earned income elasticities, with the weight determined by the resource cost of sheltering income from taxation. This generalized formula implies the efficiency cost of taxing high income individuals is not necessarily large despite evidence that their reported incomes are highly sensitive to marginal tax rates. (JEL H21, H24, H26) http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/pol.1.2.31 10.1257/pol.1.2.31 American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7731 1945-774X American Economic Journal: Economic Policy http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-pol/ 1 2 August 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=POL&volume=1&issue=2 Journal Article Tax Sensitivity and Home State Preferences in Internet Purchasing GlennEllisonMIT Sara FisherEllisonMIT 53 71 Data on memory modules sales are used to explore aspects of e-retail demand. Aggregate sales are examined in state-level regressions. Discrete choice techniques are used to examine (incomplete) hourly sales data from a price comparison site. We find a strong relationship between e-retail sales to a given state and sales tax rates that apply to purchases from offline retailers, suggesting substantial online-offline substitution and the importance of tax avoidance motives. Geography matters in two ways: consumers prefer purchasing from firms in nearby states and appear to have a separate preference for buying from in-state firms. (JEL D12, H25, H71, L81) http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/pol.1.2.53 10.1257/pol.1.2.53 http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/pol/data/2007-0029_data.zip American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7731 1945-774X American Economic Journal: Economic Policy http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-pol/ 1 2 August 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=POL&volume=1&issue=2 Journal Article Incomplete Environmental Regulation, Imperfect Competition, and Emissions Leakage Meredith L.FowlieU MI 72 112 Environmental regulation of industrial pollution is often incomplete; regulations apply to only a subset of facilities contributing to a pollution problem. Policymakers are increasingly concerned about the emissions leakage that may occur if unregulated production can be easily substituted for regulated production. This paper analyzes emissions leakage in an incompletely regulated and imperfectly competitive industry. The analytical model is used to simulate outcomes under incomplete, market-based regulation of carbon dioxide emissions in California's electricity sector. Regulation that exempts out-of-state producers achieves approximately one-third of the total emissions reductions achieved under complete regulation at more than twice the cost per ton. (JEL L94, Q53, Q58) http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/pol.1.2.72 10.1257/pol.1.2.72 http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/pol/data/2008-0011_data.zip http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/pol/app/2008-0011_app.pdf American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7731 1945-774X American Economic Journal: Economic Policy http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-pol/ 1 2 August 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=POL&volume=1&issue=2 Journal Article How Do Gasoline Prices Affect Fleet Fuel Economy? ShanjunLiStony Brook U, SUNY ChristopherTimminsDuke U Roger H.von HaefenNC State U 113 37 Exploiting a rich dataset of passenger vehicle registrations in 20 US MSAs from 1997 to 2005, we examine the effects of gasoline prices on the automotive fleet's composition. We find that high gasoline prices affect fleet fuel economy through two channels: shifting new auto purchases towards more fuel-efficient vehicles, and speeding the scrappage of older, less fuel-efficient used vehicles. Policy simulations suggest that a 10 percent increase in gasoline prices from 2005 levels will generate a 0.22 percent increase in fleet fuel economy in the short run and a 2.04 percent increase in the long run. (JEL H25, L11, L69, L71) http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/pol.1.2.113 10.1257/pol.1.2.113 http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/pol/data/2007-0058_data.zip American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7731 1945-774X American Economic Journal: Economic Policy http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-pol/ 1 2 August 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=POL&volume=1&issue=2 Journal Article The Divergence of Legal Procedures AronBalasOliver Wyman Financial Services, London RafaelLa PortaDartmouth College FlorencioLopez-de-SilanesEDHEC Business School, Nice AndreiShleiferHarvard U 138 62 Simeon Djankov et al. (2003) introduce a measure of the quality of contract enforcement -- the formalism of civil procedure -- for 109 countries as of 2000. For 40 of these countries, we compute procedural formalism every year since 1950. We find that large differences in procedural formalism between common and civil law countries existed in 1950 and widened by 2000. For this area of law, the findings are inconsistent with the hypothesis that national legal systems are converging, and support the view that legal origins exert long lasting influence on legal rules. (JEL K41, O17) http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/pol.1.2.138 10.1257/pol.1.2.138 http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/pol/data/2008-0024_data.zip American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7731 1945-774X American Economic Journal: Economic Policy http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-pol/ 1 2 August 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=POL&volume=1&issue=2 Journal Article Heterogeneity in Intra-monthly Consumption Patterns, Self-Control, and Savings at Retirement GiovanniMastrobuoniCollegio Carlo Alberto and CeRP, Netspar MatthewWeinbergCornell U 163 89 Using data from the Continuing Survey of Food Intake by Individuals, this paper describes the shape of consumption profiles over the month for Social Security benefit recipients that have saved different amounts for retirement. Individuals with income mostly made up of Social Security and savings smooth consumption over the pay period, while individuals without savings consume 25 percent fewer calories the week before they receive checks relative to the week afterwards. The findings for individuals without savings, who comprise about a fourth of our sample, are inconsistent with the standard Life Cycle- Permanent Income Hypothesis but are consistent with hyperbolic discounting. (JEL D14, E21, J26) http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/pol.1.2.163 10.1257/pol.1.2.163 http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/pol/data/2008-0031_data.zip American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7731 1945-774X American Economic Journal: Economic Policy http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-pol/ 1 2 August 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=POL&volume=1&issue=2 Journal Article The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness BetseyStevensonU PA JustinWolfersU PA 190 225 The lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years by many objective measures, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women's happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. This decline in relative wellbeing is found across various datasets, measures of subjective wellbeing, demographic groups, and industrialized countries. Relative declines in female happiness have eroded a gender gap in happiness in which women in the 1970s reported higher subjective well-being than did men. These declines have continued and a new gender gap is emerging -- one with higher subjective well-being for men. (JEL I31, J16, J28) http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/pol.1.2.190 10.1257/pol.1.2.190 http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/pol/data/2008-0014_data.zip