Public economics.

• Position: National Bureau of Economic Research conference

Members and guests of the NBER's Program on Public Economics met in Cambridge on April 8 and 9. Program Director James M. Poterba, NBER and MIT, organized the meeting and this program:

Dennis W. Epple, NBER and Carnegie-Mellon University, and Holger Sieg, Duke University, "The Tiebout Hypothesis and Majority Rule: An Empirical Analysis" (NBER Working Paper No. 6967)

Discussant: Caroline Minter Hoxby, NBER and Harvard University

Don Fullerton, NBER and University of Texas, and Sarah West, Syracuse University, "Can Taxes on Cars and on Gasoline Mimic an Unavailable Tax on Emissions?" (NBER Working Paper No. 7059)

Discussant: Arik Levinson, NBER and University of Wisconsin

Martin S. Feldstein, NBER and Harvard University, and Dan Altman, Harvard University, "Unemployment Insurance Saving Accounts" (NBER Working Paper No. 6860)

Discussant: Matthew Eichner, Department of the Treasury

R. Glenn Hubbard, NBER and Columbia University, and Kevin Hassett, Federal Reserve System, "Organizational Form in the Hospital Industry"

Discussant: David M. Cutler, NBER and Harvard University

Douglas Shackelford, NBER and University of North Carolina, and Mark Lang, University of North Carolina, "Capitalization of Capital Gain Taxes: Evidence from Stock Prices" (NBER Working Paper No. 6885)

Discussant: Andrew Samwick, NBER and Dartmouth College

Lawrence H. Goulder, NBER and Stanford University, and Roberton C. Williams III, Stanford University, "The Usual Excess Burden Approximation Usually Doesn't Come Close" (NBER Working Paper No. 7034)

Discussant: Roger H. Gordon, NBER and University of Michigan

Stephen Coate, NBER and Cornell University, and Timothy Besley, London School of Economics, "Centralized versus Decentralized Provision of Local Public Goods: A Political Economy Analysis" (NBER Working Paper No. 7084)

Discussant: Thomas J. Nechyba, NBER and Stanford University

Epple and Sieg analyze majority rule and Tiebout sorting within a system of local jurisdictions. In particular, they investigate whether observed levels of public expenditures satisfy the necessary conditions implied by majority rule in a general equilibrium model of residential choice. They control for heterogeneity among households, various characteristics of communities, the potential endogeneity of prices and expenditures, and the self-selection of households into communities of their choice. Finally, they estimate the structural parameters of the model using data from the metropolitan...