PERC Publications

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/199232

Search By Publication Type

Search By Publication Year

2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014

Search By Publication Topic

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 23

Am I the Big Fish? The Effects of Ordinal Rank on Student Academic Performance in Middle School
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2019-06-28) Yu, Han
The idea that through perseverance and hard work, one can achieve his or her dreams is a pervasive one. There is already an established literature that studies the link between relative achievement and individual outcomes, but findings on relative achievement in the classroom is rare. This article summarizes working paper 1811, where PERC Postdoctoral Associate Han Yu provides the first evidence from a developing country by studying the effects of academic class rank for 7th and 8th grade students from China. This paper also breaks new ground by providing the first direct evidence on the relationship between objective academic class rank and the rank perceived by students, as well as the impact of self-perceived rank on a student's future academic attainments.
Are Charters the Best Alternative? A Cost Frontier Analysis
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2016-09-01) Gronberg, Timothy J.; Jansen, Dennis W.; Taylor, Lori L.
Texas has been part of the charter school movement since 1995, when the 74th Texas Legislature authorized the State Board of Education to establish open enrollment (OE) charter schools in the state. According to the Texas Education Agency, in 2010-11 there were 199 OE charter districts operating 482 campuses in Texas, serving 133,697 students, nearly 3% of public school students in the state. Despite the growing role of these alternative schools in the U.S. edcucational system, they are seldom studied. In Working Paper 1606, PERC Research Fellow Timothy J. Gronberg, PERC Jordan Professor Dennis W. Jansen, and Lori L. Taylor, provide the first careful empirical study of the costs of alternative education. Their results show charters to be more cost-efficient in providing alternative education compared to traditional public school districts
The Border Adjustment Tax and Corporate Tax Reform
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2017-05-01) Liu, Liqun; Saving, Thomas R.
Both House Republicans' 2016 tax plan and, more recently, President Trump's tax plan envision a rate cut for the corporate income tax (CIT): from the current 35% to 20% (the House plan) or 15% (the president's plan). To offset any potential revenue loss due to the CIT rate cut, some economists propose a border adjustment tax (BAT). The BAT based on a new 15% CIT is equivalent to shifting the 15% CIT from being entirely on exports to entirely on imports. Because we regularly run a trade deficit, the proponents of the BAT argue, some or all of the lost revenue caused by the CIT rate reduction can be recovered by the BAT. This study examines the role of the BAT in raising revenues. It finds that some previously neglected factors would significantly compromise the BAT's ability to generate net revenues, with or without a fully offsetting appreciation of the dollar. These factors include an increase in imports price, a decrease in exports price, and dollar appreciation's asymmetric effects on imports and exports, all of which work to reduce the trade deficit or even turn it into a surplus.
The College Station-Bryan Economy Presentation
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2021-08-24) Jansen, Dennis W.; Rettenmaier, Andrew J.
The presentation includes information on: National real gross domestic product through the second quarter of 2021; ; Real personal consumption expenditures through June 2021; Julyâ€™s National nonfarm employment; Texas real taxable sales and nonfarm employment through June 2021; Real cumulative state tax revenues for fiscal years 2019-2021; The College Station-Bryan Business-Cycle Index, Business Cycle and unemployment rates through June 2021; Unemployment rates in Texas MSAs through June 2021; Components of population growth in College Station-Bryan MSA, 2010-2019; Migrant and non-migrant incomes in Brazos County and nationally; Local enplanements from 2019-2021 and monthly TSA checkpoint travel numbers
The College Station-Bryan Economy Presentation, Updated 10/26/2022
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2022-11-04) Jansen, Dennis W.; Rettenmaier, Andrew J.
The presentation includes information on: The College Station-Bryan Business-Cycle Index, Business-Cycle, nonfarm employment, taxable sales, and unemployment rates through August 2022; Real total wages through the first quarter of 2022; Unemployment rates in Texas MSAs through August 2022; Fall enrollment total and college composition at Texas A&M University from 2017-2022; Local enplanements from 2019 to September 2022 and monthly TSA checkpoint travel numbers; Nonfarm employment for the U.S. and 4 largest states through August 2022; Real GDP for Texas and the U.S. through the second quarter of 2022; Mining, Quarrying, Oil and Gas Extraction values through the second quarter of 2022; Cumulative Texas net revenues from fiscal years 2019-2022; National nonfarm employment data from 2008 to September 2022; Inflation rates using CPI, Core CPI, PCE, and Core PCE compared to Federal Reserve targets through August 2022; Actual inflation vs. Federal Reserve projections through July 2022; Historical federal revenue and outlays as a percent of GDP from 2006-2021 and projections from 2022-2052; Historical federal debt as a percent of GDP from 1986-2021 and projections through 2052
Coronavirus Economics: The Impact of Shutting Down Meatpacking Plants
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2020-10-01) Jansen, Dennis W.; Liu, Liqun; Rettenmaier, Andrew J.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Covid-19 infections at meatpacking plants led to shutdowns across the United States. Beef became scarcer and with higher consumer prices, while ranchers received lower prices for their beef. Meanwhile, meatpacking plants that were still operational were reported to have been raking in vast profits. â€‹This issue of PERCspectives on Research summarizes working paper 2006, where authors Dennis Jansen, Liqun Liu, and Andrew Rettenmaier use a simple model to study the effects of meatpacking shutdowns while focusing on the decisions of meatpacking firms.
The Corporate Financing Effects of the Temporary Tax Deduction for Repatriated Dividends
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2016-07-01) Newhard, Joseph
With the intent of stimulating domestic investment and employment, the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 included a provision under section 965 that allowed for a one-time tax deduction on repatriated dividends. In accordance with the law, qualifying repatriated funds were to be allocated to specific types of investment-related expenditures. However, since money is fungible, there is a question as to whether the law increased domestic investment spending or simply freed up cash that was to be allocated to investment, allowing corporations to increase other types of expenditures instead which were unrelated to capital investment and labor demand. Drawing from the 10-k filings of about 60 repatriating corporations, this paper analyzes the effect of the tax deduction on five types of corporate expenses, only three of which were permitted uses of qualifying funds. I find that the temporary tax deduction coincided with an increase in share repurchases and dividend payments to shareholders, both expressly unpermitted uses of qualifying repatriations. I find no evidence of a boost to the approved expenses of research and development, capital investment, or long term debt repayments. This suggests that the Act was ineffective at stimulating domestic investment, merely freeing up cash for other uses.
Disbursing Emergency Relief Through Utilities: Evidence from Ghana
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2022-09-30) Puller, Steven; Berkouwer, Susanna; Biscaye, Pierre; Wolfram, Catherine
The first warnings from health officials of an oncoming wave of infections began in late 2019. As the Covid-19 public health crisis rapidly spread, it was often followed by deep economic downturns that disproportionately affected the world's poorest. Many governments responded by expanding or introducing social protection programs, or transfer programs, to provide for the needs of their residents. The aid provided by these transfer programs materialized in different forms, such as providing food or food subsidies, direct cash payments, or energy relief programs. This issue of PERCspectives on Research summarizes working paper 2108, where Steven Puller, PERC's Professor in Free Enterprise, along with coauthors Susanna B. Berkouwer, Pierre E. Biscaye and Catherine D. Wolfram, explore how program design affects the efficiency and distributional implications of these policies, as well as political popularity, by studying an electricity transfer program in Accra, Ghana.
Does Funding Create New Giving?
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2016-05-01) Meer, Jonathan
Despite an extensive literature on the impacts of a variety of charitable fundraising tech-niques, little is known about whether these activities increase overall giving or merely cause donors to substitute away from other causes. Using detailed data from Donorschoose.org, an online plat-form linking teachers with prospective donors, I examine the extent to which matching grants for donations to certain requests affect giving to others. Eligibility for matches is determined in entirely by observable attributes of the request, providing an exogenous source of variation in incentives to donate between charities. I find that, while matches increase giving to eligible requests, they do not appear to crowd out giving to similar ones, either contemporaneously or over time.
The Failed Federal Reserve Attempt to Get Back to the Past
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2020-05-21) Saving, Thomas R.
The end result of the Federal Reserveâ€™s response to the 2008 financial and the Great Recession was an unprecedented increase in assets. Between 2008 and 2014, Federal Reserve assets rose from just under $900 billion to over $4.5 trillion, more than 500%. This asset increase was expected to dramatically increase inflation, but did not due to the introduction of paying interest on bank reserves. In policy study 2002, author Thomas R. Saving shows the Federal Reserveâ€™s rise in assets and the outcomes of its decision to return to their historic level as a share of GDP.
The Federal Reserve & Interest Rates: It's the Interest on Reserves, Not the Fed Funds Rate That Matters
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2022-09-16) Saving, Thomas R.
Much of the pressâ€™s reporting of the Federal Reserveâ€™s efforts to fight inflation is measured by how much the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at its next FOMC meeting. But the pressâ€™s measure of interest rates is in terms of the Federal Reserveâ€™s upper bound target for the Fed Funds rate, not about the Fed Funds rate itself or any interest rate for that matter. Here, Thomas Saving shows that market interest rates are not influenced by Federal Reserve decisions about its upper Fed Funds rate target. Rather, the Federal Reserveâ€™s so-called â€˜interest rate increasesâ€™ have followed significant increases in market interest rates, not led these market interest rate changes. The mechanisms that do cause an increase in market interest rates and affect the price level are also explored.
The Federal Reserve and Interest Rates
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2014-11-01) Saving, Thomas R.
The Federal Reserve In Two Crises
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2020-11-16) Saving, Thomas R.
The country has experienced two economic crises in the first two decades of the 21st century, but there are significant differences between the 2008 crisis and the 2020 crisis caused by the pandemic. In this policy study, Thomas R. Saving reports the actions of the Federal Reserve and evaluates its responses to different aspects of each crisis, including the timeliness of asset increases by the Federal Reserve. Economic factors that occurred before and during each crisis are also considered, including the unemployment rate, labor force participation, and real GDP growth.
The Federal Reserve, the Great Recession and the Lost Inflation
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2016-07-01) Saving, Thomas R.
Ever since the Federal Reserve began its series of Quantitative Easing, traditional monetary economists have been predicting levels of inflation that would rival the inflation of the late 1970â€™s and early 1980â€™s. The three QEs resulted in a more than quadrupling in the level of Federal Reserve assets in the fiscal years 2009-2015. During this seven-year period, Federal Reserve assets grew at an astounding annual rate of about 21%. Our usual pre-Great Recession theory of the money supply and prices would have suggested that a greater than 20% growth in Federal Reserve assets would result in at least double digit inflation. But none of our dire predictions about inflation happened. In fact, the two measures of inflation, the CPI and the GDP deflator, grew at surprisingly low rates of 1.2% and 1.4% respectively. The question is why did the predicted inflation not occur? There are at least two potential answers. One, everything we thought we knew about money and prices suddenly became irrelevant. Or, two, we were just ignoring things that made what has happened perfectly consistent with what we used to know.
The Federal Reserve: Back to the Past
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2017-10-01) Saving, Thomas R.
The Federal Reserve's payment of interest on bank reserves balances has transformed the balances to investments rather than just insurance against a run on the banking system. The paying of interest on reserves allowed the Federal Reserve to engage in an unprecedented increase in its assets without incurring significant inflation in the economy. The Federal Reserve recently announced that it will begin a gradual reduction in its asset portfolio. This reversal of the almost decade long increase in Federal Reserve assets will require a slow, but careful process. This process must account for the effect of the policy on the Federal Reserve's annual inflation target. In this study, the scale of the asset reduction required to return the Federal Reserve's assets to GDP ratio back to its pre-Great Recession level is measured. Using simple analysis, the magnitude of the problem and the factors that make the transition possible are estimated. This analysis demonstrates the wisdom of the slow approach envisioned by the Federal Reserve Board. Going forward, uncertainty about the future path of market interest rates is particularly important.
The Pandemic Federal Reserve: The First Two Years
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2022-06-07) Saving, Thomas R.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, developed world governments engaged in unprecedented spending. Federal Reserve securities holdings were an astounding 36.5% of the nationâ€™s Gross Domestic Product after two pandemic years. These tremendous increases in Federal Reserve holdings resulted in bank reserves that exceeded $4 trillion at their peak and even after some reductions still stood at $3.9 trillion after two years of the pandemic. During the Great Recession, bank excess reserves reached $2.6 trillion but inflation remained below 2% through paying interest on bank reserves. But now we have a bank reserve problem that is 25% larger and the question is: can the Federal Reserve set an IOR high enough to stave off an inflationary increase in the money stock? In policy study 2201, Thomas Saving examines how Federal Reserve assets and liabilities have changed during the pandemic; fluctuations in the M2 money supply; as well as the relationship between short rate Treasuries and the IOR.
The Pandemic Misery Index
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2021-03-18) Jansen, Dennis W.; Navarro, Carlos I.; Rettenmaier, Andrew J.
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought with it both human and economic loss. The Pandemic Misery Index, or PMI, is a simple metric that measures the effectiveness of pandemic-related public policies by combining the unemployment rate with the number of deaths per 10,000 people. This policy study calculates the PMI for states and metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs. Two variants of the PMI are also discussed. The first is based on average unemployment rates from the start of the pandemic in March and the cumulative number of deaths per 10,000 up to December 2020. As of the end of 2020, New Jersey and New York had the highest PMIs at 32.4 and 30.7 respectively. Vermont had the lowest PMI at 9.0 and Utahâ€™s 9.3 was second lowest in December. The second variant, the Relative Pandemic Misery Index, or RPMI, captures how an area is faring at a point in time relative to the hardest hit months of the pandemic by tracking an areaâ€™s monthly unemployment rate and death rates relative the total range of these two metrics over the course of the pandemic. New York had high initial RPMI values, but its values have since declined. In contrast, North and South Dakota had low initial RPMI values, but their values have risen in recent months
Paying for Medicare Now and in the Future
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2016-03-01) Rettenmaier, Andrew J.; Saving, Thomas R.
Medicare celebrated its golden anniversary this past year. The program now provides insurance coverage for over 50 million Americans, and accounts for 20 percent of the nation's health care spending. Its shares of the nation's output and total health care spending have grown significantly over its first 50 years. Here we note how Medicare spending is projected to grow based on several alternative forecasts. We then estimate how lifetime Medicare benefits, taxes, and premiums are distributed across and within generations. Our estimates show that Medicare is progressive within generations. We also show that that across generations the program has, up to now, provided increasing replacement rates relative to pre-retirement earnings. Accounting for all lifetime taxes and premium payments in support of the program, we estimate that net benefits for medium earning workers will remain positive even for today's new labor force entrants. Though the program is progressive within generations, each generation's retirement benefits are paid in part by higher taxes on succeeding generations. Moving toward equalizing the tax burden across generations can be accomplished by constraining the tax financed portion of Medicare so that per capita spending grows at the same rate as per capita GDP. We outline four alternative ways to recast the program's financing and insurance structure so as to constrain the tax-financed portion of retiree health care spending.
Texas Pension Woes
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2021-04-12) Jansen, Dennis W.; Liu, Liqun; Navarro, Carlos I.; Rettenmaier, Andrew J.
The unfunded liabilities from Texas many state and local defined benefit pension plans, or the amount a pension fund's assets cannot cover its liabilities, have snowballed over time and have recently reached unprecedented levels. In 2019, their collective assets were less than their liabilities by $86 billion and the funding ratio of their assets to liabilities was 77%. Although these numbers are concerning, they are based on governmental accounting methods that mask the true state of affairs. In policy study 2103, using data from 99 pension plans, authors Dennis W. Jansen, Liqun Liu, Carlos I. Navarro, and Andrew J. Rettenmaier analyze the pension funds in Texas though 2019. They calculate the pensions' liabilities and funding ratios using alternative discount rates and then discuss a range of potential reforms.
Updated 5/28: A Presentation on the Coronavirus and The Economy
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2020-05-28) Jansen, Dennis W.; Rettenmaier, Andrew J.
This presentation focuses on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on College Station-Bryan and the state of Texas. The attached presentation includes information on: Updated Unemployment Insurance claims in the United States and Texas for the week ending May 23, and for College Station-Bryan for the week ending May 16, 2020; The top 25 Texas industries with the highest number of unemployment insurance claims; The unemployment rate for Texas, the U.S., and College Station-Bryan; The unemployment rate for men and women nationally and locally; TSA and Easterwood airport throughputs and enplanements; Actual versus predicted energy use by week for a selection of states, regions of the U.S., and Texas; Budget implications locally and for the state of Texas; Information on GDP and the dramatic increase in the national debt

Browse

Browsing PERC Publications by Subject "Finance_"

Results Per Page

Sort Options