College of Behavioral & Social Sciences

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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..

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    ENDOGENOUS INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE STATE-LOCAL RELATIONSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES
    (2009) Hennessey, Jessica Lynne; Wallis, John J; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This thesis focuses on the changing relationship between state and local governments. I explore state-level constitutional changes in the 19th and early 20th century with respect to the governance and organization of municipalities. The rich heterogeneity across state constitutions gives us an opportunity to understand the underlying political and economic forces at work, using a fiscal federalism and political economy framework. There are parallels between state-level constitutional changes regarding private corporations and the less well understood changes instituted for public corporations such as municipalities. The adoption of municipal general legislation stemmed from similar problems of special interests and political maneuvering under special legislation. In some states, general legislation protected municipalities from unwanted abuse by state-level politics, and provided a uniform structure under which all local governments could operate and easily gain access to the corporate form. However, as in the case of private corporations, the one-size-fits-all rubric of general legislation was often not amenable to all municipalities. Some states implemented a Pareto-improving solution, which is to have general legislation available for those well served by it, and to give municipalities the flexibility to self-select and independently charter themselves. The resolution to grant home rule to municipalities retained the political security afforded by general legislation and provided the freedom of organization to those who needed it most. The thesis is organized as follows. Chapter 2 documents the history of the relationship between states and their municipalities. The chapter also discusses the various problems states had in maintaining the original setup of passing special laws for municipalities. Chapter 3 evaluates the changing economic and political conditions which may influence a state's choice of how to structure the state-municipal relationship. Chapter 4 looks at one institutional change, the adoption of home rule. By using a unique municipal-level dataset, I empirically investigate why certain states may have adopted this institution. Chapter 5 considers another form of local government, the school district. The patterns seen in the state-municipal relationship are mirrored in the state-school district relationship.
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    Essays on the Historical and Current Institutional Development of South East and Central European States
    (2006-04-17) Dimitrova-Grajzl, Valentina P.; Murrell, Peter; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This dissertation examines the institutional determinants of one set of countries - the former socialist states in South East and Central Europe. It is motivated by the observation that fifteen years after the beginning of transition we see a divergence in the institutional performance of the transition countries. The Balkan (South East European states) have been consistently lagging behind the Central European states. Why is there such a substantial difference in the performance and level of institutions in these two sets of former socialist countries? Unlike the sparse existing literature, which attempt to answer this question, this dissertation identifies the Ottoman and Habsburg historical legacies, rather than the socialist legacy, as a key source of divergence in institutional performance of the countries of South East and Central Europe. In Chapter 1, we identify the legacies of the Ottoman Empire and their historical origins. The chapter's main contribution is twofold. First, it identifies and discusses the origins of characteristics of the Ottoman Empire that shaped the institutional structure of its successor states. Second, the chapter analyzes the impact of these characteristics on people's behavior and incentives. Building upon the key historical dynamics identified in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 develops a stylized theoretical model of the Ottoman Empire. The model attempts to explain the rise and decline of the Empire and indirectly, the historical evolution of the Ottoman legacy. It, thereby, contributed to the literature by looking at how the Ottoman seemingly irrational and static structure could have been optimal subject to certain constraints. Chapter 3 attempts to explain the reasons for the 'great divide' in performance of the countries of South East and Central European post-socialist states. By comparing the historical developments and legacies of the Ottoman Empire with those of the Habsburg Empire, Chapter 3 draws a number of hypotheses about the effect of these legacies on current institutional performance. It presents three estimation procedures that allow us to test the hypotheses and discusses the estimation results in light of alternative theories.
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    Three Essays in Volatility Change and Private and Government Investment
    (2005-07-28) Kim, Namsuk; Haltiwanger, John C; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Studies of the volatility of the U.S. economy suggest a noticeable change in mid 1980s. There is some empirical evidence that the aggregate volatility of the U.S. economy has been decreasing over time. The response of firms to the change of economic volatility and economic fluctuation has been studied in terms of many margins a firm can adjust -capital, labor, capacity, material, etc. However, we have not studied the most important margin - the product. My dissertation studies the effect of profit volatility on the firm/plant level product diversification. Chapter 2 profiles diversification and shows that there is a downward trend of aggregate diversification in many industries. Cyclicality of diversification is not clear at the aggregate or industry level. Firms change their diversification very frequently and very differently from one another. Chapter 3 verifies the trend of volatility at the aggregate, sectoral, and firm level and studies the relationship between diversification and volatility at the firm level. Firm level diversification decreases as the aggregate, sectoral and idiosyncratic volatility decreases. Research on the volatility change is concentrated on recent U.S. history. However, new data allow us to study events of significant volatility change in early 19th century. Chapter 4 of my dissertation studies the causes and effects of the volatility change in early 19th century in U.S. and U.K.
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    Essays in Comparative Institutional Economics
    (2005-05-13) Grajzl, Peter; Murrell, Peter; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This dissertation examines how decentralized institutional structures and organizational forms evolve and affect economic development under different politico-economic and legal arrangements. Organized legal professions are typically viewed by economists as rent-seeking interest groups - even though they have been central in institutional development in countries with the highest quality institutions. Chapter 1 develops a model that identifies the link between the role of organized legal professions and the quality of reform. Delaying institutional reform through deliberation, the profession's participation discounts the expected benefit from welfare-inferior reform proposal for rent-seeking interest groups. Professional review serves as a screening mechanism ameliorating the self-interested government's adverse selection problem. The model's predictions cast new light on the Glorious and the French revolutions, post-communist transition, why and when civil law and common law systems differ, and why post-independence institutions are of higher quality in settler than in extractive colonies. Although common, self-regulation as an alternative to direct government regulation has been little investigated. Chapter 2 uses a framework inspired by property rights theory to address the allocation of regulatory authority. In a model of a regulatory process with bargaining, the authority to amend the enabling legislation can be either consolidated within the government, or extended to the producers in a self-regulatory regime. The chapter delineates the welfare implications of regulatory regime choice, and indicates whether the government's incentives to delegate or centralize regulatory authority lead to efficient institutional design. The model identifies those features of legal traditions that help to explain variation in regulatory arrangements across countries, illuminates the contrast in regulatory practice between the progressive era and the associational regime of the New Deal, and characterizes the mechanisms of intervention used in fascist economies. Chapter 3 discusses the channels through which civil society is expected to affect economic development. Utilizing the formal analysis laid out in Chapter 1, the chapter provides an introductory examination of the rationale for civil society aid and concludes with a conjectural interpretation of the determinants of the aid's effectiveness to bring about successful institutional change in post-communist countries.
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    Moderate Shocks to Wealth and Health: Estimates of Their Impact on the Mortality of Elderly
    (2004-05-03) Snyder, Stephen Edward; Evans, William N; Economics
    In Chapter One, we examine evidence for a causal connection between income and mortality. There is widespread and longstanding agreement that life expectancy and income are positively correlated. However, it has proven much more difficult to establish a causal relationship since income and health are jointly determined. We use a major change in the Social Security law as exogenous variation in income to examine the impact of income on mortality in an elderly population. We compare mortality rates after age 65 for males born in the second half of 1916 and the first half of 1917. Data from restricted-use versions of the National Mortality Detail File combined with Census data allows us to count all deaths among elderly Americans between 1979 and 1993. We find that the higher income group has a higher mortality rate, contradicting the previous literature. We also found that the younger cohort responded to lower incomes by increasing post-retirement work effort. These results suggest that moderate employment has beneficial health effects for the elderly. In Chapter Two, we examine another potential determinant of mortality among the elderly, pre-natal shocks to the mother's health. D.J.P. Barker has presented epidemiologic evidence that maternal health status affects the later-life mortality of children. We use the 1918 influenza epidemic as a health shock which is orthogonal to chronic health status. Our findings are that the influenza-exposed cohorts do not experience significantly higher mortality. This allows us to bound any Barker effect of the epidemic as raising mortality less than ten percent.