Empirical Studies in Public Finance and Financial Economics

这项研究包括两个项目。第一个是调查国家预算程序对资本和运营支出的影响。其目的是研究一些州政府使用的资本预算程序是否会影响诸如高速公路、学校等资本项目的公共支出水平。将对各州的支出数据进行统计分析，以确定资本预算对公共资本投资水平和类型的影响。另一个项目是在金融经济学领域，目的是发现什么因素可以解释股票价格的变化。传统的理论和模型不能充分解释为什么股市似乎变得越来越不稳定，最近的股市崩盘就是证据。向量自回归技术将用于分析价格波动。将特别注意诸如宣布的利率变动或贸易或预算赤字报告等新闻在影响市场波动方面可能发挥的作用。在公共财政领域，联邦政府是否应该采用资本预算一直是一个长期存在的问题。近年来，由于对日益恶化的基础设施和联邦预算赤字的担忧，这个问题已经成为人们关注的焦点。完全不清楚采用双重预算制度是否会影响联邦开支的水平或模式。这个项目应该能让我们对这个问题有所了解。对股价波动的研究可能会找出波动的新来源，并提出降低市场波动和提高投资资本效率的方法。

This study involves two projects. The first is to investigate the effects of state budgeting procedures on capital and operating expenditures. The object is to examine the issue of whether the level of public spending on capital projects such as highways, schools, etc. is influenced by capital budgeting procedures used by some state governments. Expenditure data by state will be analyzed statistically to determine the effect of capital budgeting on the level and type of public capital investments. The other project is in the area of financial economics and is aimed at discovering what factors may account for the variation of stock prices. Traditional theory and models do not adequately explain why the stock market seems to be becoming more volatile as evidenced by the recent stock market crash. Vector autoregression techniques will be used to analyze price volatility. Particular attention will be paid to the role that news, such announced changes in interest rates or the reporting of trade or budget deficits, may play in affecting market volatility. Whether or not the federal government should adopt the use of a capital budget has been a long standing issue in public finance, which in recent years has come to the forefront because of concerns over deteriorating infrastructure and over the federal budget deficit. It is not clear at all whether the adoption of a dual budget system would affect the level or pattern of federal spending. This project should shed some light on that issue. The research on stock price volatility may identify new sources of that volatility and suggest ways the market may be made less volatile and more efficient for raising investment capital.