Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
Browse
23 results
Search Results
Item Brings the Politics Back in:Political Incentive and Policy Distortion in China(2009) Mei, Ciqi; Pearson, Margaret M.; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explores why some commendable policy goals set by the central government of China have been left unmet at the local levels. Observing the significance of policy behaviors of local officials in producing policy outcomes in their jurisdictions, it attributes the apparent policy distortion to the "incorrect" incentives that local officials face now. Different from those focusing on the new economic incentive offered by the new decentralization arrangement during the reform era, this study looks into the nature of political incentives embedded in the oldtop-down cadre management system to see how local officials are "incentivized" politically to produce distorted policy outcomes. By investigating formal rules governing local chiefs' turnovers and actual past turnovers of the prefectural chiefs in Zhejiang and Hubei provinces during the reform era, this study finds out that the top-down political incentive is unbalanced by nature in that promotion criteria for local chiefs slant heavily to local chiefs' achievements (zhengji) in promoting local economic growth while their performance in other policy issues are neglected at large. It argues that such unbalanced nature of top-down political incentive has induced local officials to divert more efforts to pursue "mindless" economic growth at the cost of other commendable goals; policy distortion therefore emerges as the consequence of unbalanced political incentive. This dissertation continues to explain why the apparent policy distortion has persisted. By investigating five cases illustrating the way the center deals with local policy distortion, it argues that the central government is unwilling, unable and ineffective to sanction policy distortion because of the innate conflict between the indirect management tool the center uses and the multiple governance goals it desires for. The unbalanced nature of current top-down political incentive is therefore predetermined and policy distortion persists. This dissertation contributes to the general discussion on central-local dynamics in China by bringing back the top-down political incentives as the most important institutional cause for policy outcome. Policy implication of this study is clear: the problem of policy distortion could not be solved without reshuffling the top-down political incentive system.Item Municipal User Charges in the Era of Tax and Expenditure Limitations(2009) Sun, Rui; Reuter, Peter; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)User charges have emerged as one of the major revenue sources for municipal governments in the United States since the late 1970s. Meanwhile, a majority of states have adopted tax and expenditure limitations (TELs) in an attempt to constrain the revenue and spending levels of local governments including municipalities. In the era of TELs, how user charges perform their multiple roles in promoting local autonomy, political accountability, allocative efficiency, horizontal equity, and responsive government deserves considerable attention in the field of public finance. This dissertation explores the causes and consequences of the increased use of user charges by American municipalities. First, I provide an overview of fiscal trends in American municipalities. Chapter 1 discusses the context in which municipal revenue policy is made, the definitions of user charges, the salience of the issue, and the aims and organization of the dissertation. Chapter 2 investigates the effect of TELs on municipal reliance on user charges. The analysis is based on a sample of 724 cities for the period of 1970 to 2004. I employ fixed effects regression techniques to help control for the unobserved city-level characteristics that vary across cities but are time invariant. Results indicate that the implementation of TELs leads to a substantial increase in per capita user charges. The effect becomes even more pronounced when the endogoneity of TELs is taken into account using a two-stage least squares model. This finding implies that TELs may have unintended consequences and lead to a bigger government. Results also suggest that the restrictiveness and the number of TELs make a difference and different types of TELs generate varying effects on user charge reliance. Chapter 3 examines the impact of user charge financing on municipal expenditure levels. Using a panel of 686 cities for the sewer service and 715 cities for the parks and recreation service between 1972 and 2004, I find strong evidence that a greater reliance on user charges to finance government services leads to a reduction in municipal expenditures. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of policy implications in Chapter 4.Item Should Advertising Remain a Tax-Deductible Business Expense?(2009) Wengrover, Sally Ruth; Daly, Herman E.; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Advertising expenses have been deductible ever since the income tax was enacted in 1913. Over the years, however, a number of analysts have questioned advertising's tax status. According to some, advertising creates intangible capital and should, therefore, be capitalized and amortized like other capital assets. According to other analysts, advertising does more to reduce welfare than to augment it; therefore, the deduction should be completely denied. Advertisers and their supporters, on the other hand, maintain that the deduction is entirely reasonable. This dissertation addresses some of the legal controversies involving the deduction and examines some of advertising's economic psychological, sociological and ecological effects. In Part I, Chapter 1 introduces the research question and debates the welfare implications of ad-induced economic growth. Chapter 2 considers whether advertising is, in fact, an "ordinary and necessary business expense" that is entitled to a tax deduction. Although advocates for the deduction claim that it is both ordinary and necessary, some critics argue that the deduction is, in fact, a subsidy that shifts more of the tax burden to individual taxpayers. Part II is devoted to the economic effects of advertising. Chapter 3 discusses advertising's impact on demand for the output of an individual firm, a particular industry, and all industries combined. Chapter 4 examines the effect of advertising on the competitive model; Chapter 5 evaluates advertising's influence on innovation, employment, and savings; and Chapter 6 considers the economic impact of advertising on the media. The focus in Part III is on advertising's influence on well-being. Chapter 7 examines ways that advertising affects the well-being of individuals and society. Chapter 8 surveys the impact of ad-induced materialistic values on the environment. Chapter 9 looks at a number of costs and benefits that are associated with advertising, discusses potential obstacles to changing advertising's tax status, and offers recommendations for policymakers.Item An Institutional Analysis of the Chinese Land Conversion Process(2009) Ma, Jianbo; Nelson, Robert H; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Formally, China has a highly centralized system to control the conversion of farmland to non-farming uses. Its rigidity and other problems, however, have led to a large informal and decentralized market that serves to accommodate the demand for developable land. This dissertation, based on a case study in a county on China's eastern coast, finds that the informal land market has played an essential role in promoting local economic growth, improving the financial situations of local governments and villages, and benefiting some low-income people. As far as economic efficiency is concerned, the Chinese land system functions reasonably well given the existing institutional arrangements, though at high transaction costs. However, the land conversion process, governed largely by the law of the jungle, is highly unfair because it favors the powerful, the bold and the wealthy. The recent piecemeal policies by China's national government to fix the system have produced few positive or even negative effects. The dissertation concludes that the success of future attempts to improve the land conversion system hinges on the willingness and capability of the national government to change the rules of the game in a fundamental way.Item Trade Openness and Well-Being: Do Complementary Conditions Matter?(2008-05-15) Guzman, Julio A; Graham, Carol; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the last three decades, most of the existing literature using regression analysis to explore the effects of trade on development has conferred the first one a leading role in directly determining cross-country differences on income. Indeed, this should come at surprise, since what trade theory predicts and what results from General Equilibrium Models (an econometric-alternative quantitative tool) recently display are not completely aligned with conventional empirical evidence at hand. According to these sources, the effects of trade liberalization on welfare are indirect, transmitted through several channels, and dependent on multiple initial conditions. Much of such discrepancy may be due to measurement error and omitted variable problems, data limitations, and methodological shortcomings presented in regression analysis. On one hand, there is agreement over the fact that conventional proxies of trade openness contain severe measurement errors. In addition, data on control variables affecting well-being and believed to be correlated with trade became available just recently. On the other hand, and more importantly, the search for a possible contingent or conditional relationship between free trade and well-being has not been a priority in the agenda of mainstream literature with the exception of sporadic and isolated studies, despite the fact that trade theory has long recognized that possibility. Using newly developed policy-oriented measures of trade integration built with information from tariff rates, non-tariff-barriers, and subsidies, and controlling by multidimensional policy areas beyond those found in conventional literature, this study finds evidence of a contingent relationship between trade openness and well-being. More specifically, this investigation arrives at two conclusions. First, unilateral or one-way-street trade liberalization is not associated with higher levels of well-being, showing neither a direct impact nor a conditional one in the presence of complementary conditions. Second, gains in international market access, or multilateral trade openness, do not alone guarantee the achievement of higher levels of well-being, but do demonstrate significant potential for development in the presence of favorable internal conditions, such as those linked to business competitiveness and market efficiency, the promotion and respect of political rights among the citizenry, and the less concentrated distribution of economic and social opportunities.Item Efficiency Versus Democracy: Policy Trends and Assessment of State E-government(2008-05-05) Anderson, David Adam; Jaeger, Paul T.; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Assessments of E-government literature have noted a lack of both broadly-drawn studies and policy-oriented research. This paper addresses this gap through a systematic, content-based assessment of E-government strategic planning documents from 37 states, meant to determine the holistic policy orientation of American E-government. Specifically, this study tests the proposition that state E-government policies can be said to exhibit either an evolutionary or revolutionary orientation towards affecting desired changes in matters of efficiency, democracy, or both. This orientational framework is drawn from examples found in federal E-government policy and academic E-government literature. It is also used to outline biases of existing E-government implementation models, and to frame discussion of a model for gauging progress in "E-democracy." Other issues explored include the ultimate legitimacy of an E-government that fails to implement democracy-oriented tools, the potential Constitutional conflicts of a transformative approach to E-government, and the wisdom of re-conceptualizing citizens as "customers."Item THE COMMUNITY CAPACITY BUILDING IMPACT OF THE BALTIMORE EMPOWERMENT ZONE(2008-04-28) Clinch, Richard; Nelson, Robert H; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The federal Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Community (EZ/EC) Initiative was the major urban initiative of the Clinton administration. It sought to replace the Reagan and the first Bush administrations' reductions in support for urban programs and passive focus on addressing urban issues through people-based policies and market and tax incentives. Baltimore was one of six cities selected for a full Empowerment Zone. One of the core goals of the federal EZ/EC Initiative was to create sustainable community capacity. Baltimore's implementation strategy was recognized as the most community driven of all of the Zones. This dissertation examines the experience of the Empowerment Zone in building sustainable community development capacity in the form of community organizations to implement programs and presents lessons learned to guide future community capacity building efforts. This dissertation used a detailed literature review, interview, focus group, records review and case study approach to answer the question - Can a federal policy create sustainable community capacity? The Baltimore Empowerment Zone was partially successful in creating or enhancing community development capacity in six urban neighborhoods in Baltimore. Five of the six community organizations - in the case of the Baltimore Empowerment Zone these were called village centers -- formed or participating in the Empowerment Zone effort operated throughout the ten year federal funding period and four remained in operation after the end of the program. This dissertation examined the internal (community) and external (economic, social, and political) factors that influenced each village centers' efforts to build sustainable development community capacity.Item Socio-Technical Transition as a Co-Evolutionary Process: Innovation and the Role of Niche Markets in the Transition to Motor Vehicles(2008-04-25) Birky, Alicia Kim; Ruth, Matthias; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Significant reductions in greenhouse emissions from personal transportation will require a transition to an alternative technology regime based on renewable energy sources. Two bodies of research, the quasi-evolutionary (QE) model and the multi-level perspective (MLP) assert that processes within niches play a fundamental role in such transitions. This research asks whether the description of transitions based on this niche hypothesis and its underlying assumptions is consistent with the historical U.S. transition to motor vehicles at the beginning of the 20th century. Unique to this dissertation is the combination of the perspective of the entrepreneur with co-evolutionary approaches to socio-technical transitions. This approach is augmented with concepts from the industry life-cycle model and with a taxonomy of mechanisms of learning. Using this analytic framework, I examine specifically the role of entrepreneurial behavior and processes within and among firms in the co-evolution of technologies and institutions during the transition to motor vehicles. I find that niche markets played an important role in the development of the technology, institutions, and the industry. However, I also find that the diffusion of the automobile is not consistent with the niche hypothesis in the following ways: 1) product improvements and cost reductions were not realized in niche markets, but were achieved simultaneously with diffusion into mass markets; 2) in addition to learning-by-doing and learning-by-interacting with users, knowledge spillovers and interacting with suppliers were critical in this process; 3) cost reductions were not automatic results of expanding markets, but rather arose from the strategies of entrepreneurs based on personal perspectives and values. This finding supports the use of a behavioral approach with a micro-focus in the analysis of socio-technical change I also find that the emergence and diffusion of the motor vehicle can only be understood by considering the combination of developments and processes in multiple regimes, within niches, and within the wider technical, institutional, and ecological complex (TIEC). For the automobile, the process of regime development was more consistent with a fit-stretch pattern of gradual unfolding and adaptation than one of niche proliferation and rapid regime renewal described in the literature.Item Greening Export Promotion: A Comparative Study of Environmental Standard-Setting for Export Credit Agencies(2008-01-15) Schaper, Marcus; Schreurs, Miranda A; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Export credit agencies (ECAs), private banks and the World Bank are all institutions which facilitate the construction of infrastructure projects in developing countries, which often have significant environmental ramifications. However, although all three types of institutions have also been known to acquiesce to public pressure to consider the extent of the environmental impact of their projects, export credit agencies were able to resist this pressure for 25 years, implementing environmental rules in their operations much later than did the World Bank and private banks, which introduced similar reforms within a much shorter period of time. This dissertation explains why ECAs as public institutions were less responsive to public demands than an international organization and even private banks. The answer to this puzzle is advanced in two dimensions: one dealing with the rule-making process and the other addressing the harmonization of policies among ECAs. In a cost-benefit analysis approach covering both dimensions, the political costs and benefits of changes to existing rules as well as the regulatory costs of these changes are considered. Political costs and benefits are considered to result from the effects of these rules on competing groups combined with the power these groups wield in the rule-making process. Regulatory costs result from changes in rules and procedures. They are especially pronounced when adaptations go beyond changes to regulatory targets and include modifications in regulations or even challenge meta-regulatory principles engrained in regulatory cultures. Diverging speed and scope of reform among these institutions is the consequence of variations in the power of competing demands made on them and variations in the institutional contexts enabling, channeling, and constraining the power of the groups making the demands. Adopted rules reflect these power relationships. ECA harmonization involves changes to pre-existing regulations and compromises on meta-regulatory principles. This kind of agreement is very difficult to achieve - if achieved at all. Institutional incompatibility between rules proposed by the United States and continental European regulatory cultures was a decisive obstacle to harmonization.Item What Type of Fiscal Decentralization System Has Better Performance?(2007-12-07) Liu, Chih-hung; Reinhart, Carmen; Zinnes, Clifford; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The conventional wisdom of fiscal decentralization advocates is that fiscal decentralization can facilitate the economic development of a country. In addition, the World Bank and IMF have identified over sixty countries where decentralization is an important element of development strategy. However, with the proliferating implementation of fiscal decentralization, the actual outcome has varied from country to country. A major barrier to understanding is the lack of well-defined theoretical framework to empirically measure fiscal decentralization in a policy relevant way. The most widely used measurement is the ratio of sub-national government expenditure/revenue to total government expenditure/revenue. But this indicator is criticized too simple to capture the dimensions of fiscal decentralization. Specifically, it ignores key qualitative dimensions, such as taxing power, borrowing power and the independence of local officials, which are also very important to implementing fiscal decentralization. The primary contribution of this dissertation is a novel theoretical framework for empirical measurement of fiscal decentralization. The research question is: what types of fiscal decentralization system produce better economic performance? We go beyond the traditional way of measuring a country's fiscal decentralization, treating it instead as a system with its own institutional design. Adopting this method requires us investigate the institutional arrangement for fiscal decentralization in a country. The institutional arrangement we review in detail includes: supra-national government, federal or unitary state, numbers of tiers of governments, taxing power, borrowing power, and independent local official. These components have also been recognized by many economists and policy analysts. What is original to this work is that, after identifying these institutional arrangements, we can group different countries with similar institutionally similar fiscal decentralization systems together in broad categories by using cluster analysis. We are then in a position to measure the successes of each cluster according to several indicators, such as: economic performance, fiscal performance, and governance performance. An inter- and intra-cluster comparison and one empirical model thus give a snapshot of the relationship between fiscal decentralization and economic performance. The ultimate goal, for policy analysis, is to be able to distinguish the desirable institutional arrangements of fiscal decentralization from the less desirable ones.
- «
- 1 (current)
- 2
- 3
- »