Dennis H. Sullivan

Econometric analysis of business tax impacts on industrial location: What do we know, and how do we know it?

Abstract This paper reviews econometric analyses of business tax impacts on location written after Oaklands 1978 review [in “Metropolitan Financing and Growth Management Policies” (G. F. Break, Ed.), Univ. of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1978]. There is a particular focus on model specification and the underlying theoretical structure. Both intrametropolitan and interstate location studies are reviewed.

Canons of Just Taxation: Efficiency and Fairness in an Economy with a Public Good

This article analyzes the relationships among three canons of “just” taxation: Pareto optimality, individual rationality, and fairness (nonenvy). Using a helpful device called a Kolm triangle, the analysis shows that the fair and Pareto optimal point need not be individually rational, that it will involve progressive taxation, and that it bears no particular relationship to Lindahl equilibrium, but a rather close relationship to Rawlsian justice.

Children and Household Income Packages: A Cross-National Analysis

How does a households economic situation vary with the number of children in it? The most recent papers in the cross-national literature on the effects of children on the economic status of households have had either of two preoccupations. One is child poverty, the topic of a recent major conference (Koen Vleminckx and Timothy Smeeding, 2001). The other concerns the impact of children on the earnings (both wages and hours) of mothers (e.g., Susan Harkness and Jane Waldfogel, 1999). Our research approaches the problem of child and parental welfare by examining the effects of the presence and number of children on the components of the households income package (Lee Rainwater and Timothy Smeeding, 1997). After examining the effect of children on ageadjusted disposable income in nine OECD countries, we decompose the effect in each country into a labor-market (earnings and self-employment income) component, a fiscal (tax/transfer) component, and a residual component. We find that cross-national differences in the effect of children on disposable income are determined largely by differences in the effect of children on household earnings, particularly the earnings of wives and single household heads. We also find that countries delivering a generous fiscal package to households with children are typically the countries for which the effect of children on earnings is most negative, and that the negative earnings effect often exceeds the size of the fiscal effect.

The Role of Food Stamps in Welfare Reforms

Welfare reform has been a major issue in American political economy for the last twenty years. Over this same period, the Food Stamp Program, which first surfaced as a significant political issue during John Kennedy’s West Virginia primary campaign, has developed into a major component of the American transfer apparatus. The growth of in-kind transfers and the counterpoint of reformers’ attempts to cash them out are indeed characteristic of the whole period, and the Food Stamp Program is a major example. If we are to think clearly about the future, we must have an appreciation of this significant history.