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Now showing items 1-10 of 12
Taxing Wealth
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2020-01-29)
During this presidential primary season, several candidates have proposed a tax on the wealthy to fund platform promises. There is certainly appeal for a wealth tax, as these proposed taxes are seen as a tax on someone ...
Almost Stochastic Dominance: Magnitude Constraints on Risk Aversion
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2021-06-01)
Almost stochastic dominance (ASD) extends conventional first and second degree stochastic dominance by placing restrictions on the variability in the first and second derivatives of utility. Such restrictions increase the ...
Texas Pension Woes
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2021-04-12)
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 ...
Comparative Risk Apportionment
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2021-01-04)
A decision maker who would rather apportion an independent risk in a state with a good lottery than in a state with a bad lottery is said to have a preference for risk apportionment (Eeckhoudt & Schlesinger, 2006). In this ...
Portfolio Choice in the Model of Expected Utility with a Safety-First Component
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2020-10-14)
Whereas the majority of economists interpret risk as dispersion or variation in an outcome variable, many everyday decision makers tend to associate risk with the outcome failing to meet a certain “safety� level. In ...
Coronavirus Economics: The Impact of Shutting Down Meatpacking Plants
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2020-06-25)
Motivated by the observed beef and livestock market impacts of coronavirus-caused meatpacking plant shutdowns, this paper constructs a theoretical model to study the effects of closures among downstream producers on both ...
Retirement Plan Choice and Public Pension Reform
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2021-09-08)
Despite the private sector’s switch to defined contribution retirement plans, traditional defined benefit pension plans remain dominant in the public sector. In this issue of PERCspectives on Policy, authors Dennis Jansen, ...
Stochastic Superiority
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2021-05-06)
This paper introduces a definition of stochastic superiority. One random variable is stochastically superior to another whenever it stochastically dominates the other after the risk in each random variable has been optimally ...
Coronavirus Economics: The Impact of Shutting Down Meatpacking Plants
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2020-10-01)
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. ...
Federal Liabilities: 2021 Update
(Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University, 2021-06-11)
The 2020 Financial Report of the United States Government (FRUSG) identifies total federal liabilities of $32.7 trillion as of September 30, 2020. The debt held by the public, $21.1 trillion, comprised 62% of these ...