Three essays on government expenditures.

详细信息   

• 作者：Sim ; Song Bo.
• 学历：Ph.D.
• 年：2013
• 导师：Bartolome, Charles de,eadvisorMcKinnish, Terraecommittee memberMcNown, Robertecommittee memberAntman, Franciscaecommittee memberLiu, Amyecommittee member
• 毕业院校：University of Colorado
• Department：Economics
• ISBN：9781303333965
• CBH：3592378
• Country：USA
• 语种：English
• FileSize：1269487
• Pages：107

文摘

The analyses in my dissertation are related to how government expenditures are spent and how they should be spent as a whole. It consists of three chapters which analyze the opportunistic manipulation of expenditures, the factors determining the extent of in-kind transfers and the relationship between child labor and participation in the conditional cash transfer program. In the first chapter Strategic use of expenditures to stay in office), the evidence of manipulation of expenditure is found and the explanation with rational voter is provided. The basic idea is that two types of incumbents will spend more money in their less-preferred sector to attract median voter when they face a small chance of winning in the following election. This expectation is confirmed using a unique Korean local government data set. The fact that there have been two dominant types of parties in Korea, and that expenditures are classified by the social development and the economic development enable this analysis. This analysis is unique in that this is the first empirical analysis trying to see how the opportunistic behavior of incumbent is done according to the probability of winning under heterogeneous preference about composition. Also, the results are interesting because it shows the different empirical evidence, which is contrary to the theoretical prediction by Alesina and Tabellini 1990). The theoretical explanation characterizes the situation where this opportunistic manipulation is possible even with rational voters. The second chapter In-kind transfer as the political equilibrium) examines the reason why governments transfer in-kind goods instead of cash. While there have been several analyses of possible explanations for in-kind transfers, the analyses based on a political view are scarce. This analysis provides the empirical evidence supporting the in-kind transfers as a political equilibrium. Two different hypotheses inducing different expected empirical results based on a political view are provided and are tested using cross-county data. The findings show that the in-kind transfers are increasing as the country becomes more democratic and the median voter is more away from median income. The last chapter The effect of child labor on participation in CCTs) investigates the relationship between child labor and the participation in CCTs conditional cash transfers) in Mexico. Since the CCTs are introduced to eliminate child labor and incentivize them to attend school, it has been thought that households with child labor are less likely to participate in the program. This chapter doubts this common belief. Because the conditionality in CCTs is normal goods and child labor could be the result of household characteristics making conditionality more valuable. The estimated probability model shows that households having child labor are actually more likely to apply to the program.