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Title: Essays in Macroeconomics and Public Economics

Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis

Publication Year: 2019

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Abstract: This dissertation contains essays in macroeconomics and public economics. In the first es- say, I analyze the interaction between student debt and occupational choice. In recent times, student debt has grown the most among any other types of debt in the US. Student debt can have distortionary behavioral effects and one such effect is in occupational choice. In this pa- per, I construct a model of occupational choice between being an entrepreneur and a worker and examine how occupational choice is affected by repayment plans available to students. Since entrepreneurship is inherently riskier than becoming a worker, a debt repayment plan that takes into account the income level of the borrower can have an effect on occupational choice. I find that while repayment plans do not change the rate of entrepreneurship in the aggregate, there is substantial change in the composition of entrepreneurs by age. In the second essay, I study the quantitative effects of the decline in price of investment goods on the process of structural change and economic growth. Using the Korean economy to calibrate a canonical two-sector model of growth, I study labor allocations in agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. The model is able to match several features of the economy and has implications for sectoral value-added and employment shares, GDP per capita and investment. In particular, I find that the decline in the price of investment goods decreases the value-added and employment shares in the agricultural sector and increases the level of GDP per capita and investment. In the third essay, I provide estimates for the elasticity of taxable income with respect to marginal tax rates using the publicly available Current Population Survey (CPS) dataset. In contrast to studies that use datasets on tax returns that are not publicly available, I use the panel structure of the CPS and exploit tax reforms in the US to employ an instrumental variables approach to study how taxable income responds to changes in tax rates. I find that the elasticity of taxable income is 0.65 for married couples.

Url: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/37094/1/ETD_Sherpa_ver4.pdf

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Authors: Sherpa, Lhakpa

Institution: University of Pittsburgh

Department: Economics

Advisor: Daniele Coen-Pirani

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

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Pages: 79

Data Collections: IPUMS CPS

Topics: Other

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