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Using a dataset that includes every private donation made to a large public university from 1938 to 2012 and demographic information on all alumni, we examine the effects of public research funding on individual donations. Our dataset allows us to examine crowding effects on a small time scale and extensive donor characteristics. We estimate effects on the total number of donations (extensive margin) and on the average size of a donation (intensive margin). National Science Foundation research grants have a positive (crowd-in) effect on the extensive margin and a negative (crowd-out) effect on the intensive margin. We find no evidence of these effects from other sources of federal research funding. Previous donors and in-state residents respond differently to grants than do new donors and out-of-state residents, respectively.

Using panel data on the salary schedules of public school teachers and administrators, I look for evidence of a tournament wage structure. A tournament model is presented, where teachers compete for promotion to administrators. Districts can create incentives for teachers by offering either a higher pay premium for promotion or a larger probability of promotion. The model predicts an inverse relationship between these two values. Evidence supporting this prediction is found in the data. In contrast, an alternative model of incentive pay, where returns to seniority substitute for imperfect monitoring, is not supported empirically. This result is consistent with intuition that tenure protections make it hard for districts to fire shirking teachers, making returns to seniority a poor method of providing incentives. (Contains 3 tables.)

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2006.07.004 Byline: Don Fullerton (a)(b), Garth Heutel (a) Keywords: Distributional burdens; Pollution policy; Analytical solutions; Sources side; Uses side Abstract: We study the distributional effects of a pollution tax in general equilibrium, with general forms of substitution where pollution might be a relative complement or substitute for labor or for capital in production. We find closed form solutions for pollution, output prices, and factor prices. Various special cases help clarify the impact of differential factor intensities, substitution effects, and output effects. Intuitively, the pollution tax might place disproportionate burdens on capital if the polluting sector is capital intensive, or if labor is a better substitute for pollution than is capital; however, conditions are found where these intuitive results do not hold. We show exact conditions for the wage to rise relative to the capital return. Plausible values are then assigned to all the parameters, and we find that variations over the possible range of factor intensities have less impact than variations over the possible range of elasticities. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Economics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA (b) NBER, USA Article History: Received 19 April 2006; Revised 10 July 2006; Accepted 10 July 2006 Article Note: (footnote) [star] We are grateful for funding from the AERE, the University of Texas, the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, and Japan's Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). For helpful suggestions, we thank John List, Gib Metcalf, Ian Parry, Kerry Smith, Chris Timmins, Rob Williams, and seminar participants at the University of Texas at Austin, the 2004 AERE Workshop in Estes Park, CO, and Camp Resources XII in Wilmington, NC. This paper is part of the NBER's research program in Public Economics. Any opinions expressed are those of the authors and not those of the AERE, UT, the NSF, ESRI, or the National Bureau of Economic Research.