William Duncombe
Biographic Data
| ID | 4399324 |
|---|---|
| NAME | William Duncombe |
| GIVEN NAMES | William |
| FAMILY NAME | Duncombe |
| SIGNATURE | DUNCOMBE W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Syracuse University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 65 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1992 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Debt and Deception: How States Avoid Making Hard Fiscal Decisions
Government borrowing occurs whenever the government forgoes control over some future flow of resources or benefits in order to acquire resources for current use. Based on this definition, the authors identify several ways that state governments borrow, which include widely recognized forms of debt as well as types of actions that are less transparent. Case studies for Connecticut, Illinois, and New York document the large amounts of future commit…
Are Education Cost Functions Ready for Prime Time? An Examination of Their Validity and Reliability
This article makes the case that cost functions are the best available methodology for ensuring consistency between a state's educational accountability system and its education finance system. Because they are based on historical data and well-known statistical methods, cost functions are a particularly flexible and low-cost way to forecast what each school district must spend to meet the standards in a state's accountability system. However, th…
Introduction to Education Cost Functions: Recent Developments In Their Estimation and Applications to Education Policy
Does whole-school reform boost student performance? The case of New York City
Thousands of schools around the country have implemented whole-school reform programs to boost student performance. This paper uses quasi-experimental methods to estimate the impact of whole-school reform on students' reading performance in New York City, where various reform programs were adopted in dozens of troubled elementary schools in the mid-1990s. This paper complements studies based on random assignment by examining a broad-based reform …
Place Characteristics and Residential Location Choice Among the Retirement-Age Population
Although income tax reductions might influence the location decisions of recent retirees, whether or not the economic benefits associated with these population gains outweigh the accompanying revenue losses is an important area for further research. A more cost-effective strategy may be for states to focus on marketing their amenities rather than using fiscal policy to recruit retirees
Retire to where? A discrete choice model of residential location
Many studies of migration attempt to identify attributes of places that influence residential location decisions. Most such studies relate an area's migration rates to its own attributes, or the flow of migrants between two areas to the attributes of both places. We focus on retirement migration within the US, and extend the literature by using a discrete choice framework in which a person's location decision depends on the attributes of all pote…
Identifying low-performance public schools
Balancing Conflicting Policy Objectives: The Case of School Finance Reform
Public policy decisions frequently require the establishment of a balance between conflicting objectives. This is especially true for many current state policy efforts, particularly with regard to funding for public education. This policy area, which dominates state-local fiscal relationships, has been subjected to substantial challenges in recent years. While local governments have traditionally exercised significant control over public educatio…
Why is it so hard to help central city schools
Many states have implemented educational grant systems designed to provide more aid to school districts that are, by some standard, in greater need. Nevertheless, many if not most central city school systems continue to produce poor educational outcomes, as measured, for example, by test scores and dropout rates. Using data from New York State, this article asks why existing aid formulas fail to provide the assistance that central city school dis…
Empirical evaluation of bureaucratic models of inefficiency
The Tax Decade
On the Measurement and Causes of Technical Inefficiency in Local Public Services: With an Application to Public Education
Journal Article On the Measurement and Causes of Technical Inefficiency in Local Public Services: With an Application to Public Education Get access John Ruggiero, John Ruggiero University of Dayton Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar William Duncombe, William Duncombe Syracuse University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Jerry Miner Jerry Miner Syracuse University Search…
Judicial Intervention and Local Spending: The Case of Local Jails
This study develops a methodology for examining the impact of court orders on local budgets and applies it to one of the most important areas of judicial involvement‐local jails. During the 1980s an increasing number of local jails came under court order due to overcrowded facilities. In many counties this has been matched by equally rapid growth in jail capacity and expenditures. Based on simple comparisons of these trends and case studies of in…
The Impact of Courts on the Decision to Expand Jail Capacity
Over the past 20 years, an extensive literature has focused on the role of courts in shaping public policy and management. Yet despite the continuing interest in the topic, very little "hard" evidence exists on the actual impact of court interventions in public agencies. The objective of this study is to estimate the impact of court orders and mandates on public programs in one of the most important areas of judicial intervention, local jails. Th…
State and Local Debt Burdens in the 1980s: A Study in Contrast
State and local governments have coped with major changes in their fiscal environment during the 1980s. The impact of tax and expenditure limitations (Joyce and Mullins, 1991), declining federal aid (Nathan and Lago, 1988), and changes in federal tax policy (Courant and Rubinfeld, 1987) all changed the calculus facing state and local fiscal decision makers. While the effects on their tax and expenditure structures have been studied, the impact on…
Jonathan Swift and Thomas Sheridan: The Intelligencer
Costs and Factor Substitution in the Provision of Local Fire Services
Evidence on costs and factor substitution is presented for a sample of local fire departments in New York State. The results suggest that fire service production does not fit either Leontief, Cobb-Douglas, or CES technology. In addition, exogenous socioeconomic variables are found to significantly affect public-sector costs and the estimates of factor price elasticities. The findings of relatively low factor demand and substitution elasticities s…
An Economic Evaluation of Paid, Volunteer, and Mixed Staffing Options for Public Services
Economic Change and Fiscal Planning: The Origins of the Fiscal Crisis in New York State
What can policy makers learn from the fiscal experience of New York during the 1980s? By most measures, the state went from a position of fiscal strength in the early 1980s to fiscal crisis by the end of the decade. In their analysis of demographic, social, economic, and fiscal patterns, Roy Bahl and William Duncombe show that the lack of long-term fiscal planning and short-term discipline were the root causes of the turnabout. They call for grea…
Place Characteristics and Residential Location Choice Among the Retirement-Age Population
Although income tax reductions might influence the location decisions of recent retirees, whether or not the economic benefits associated with these population gains outweigh the accompanying revenue losses is an important area for further research. A more cost-effective strategy may be for states to focus on marketing their amenities rather than using fiscal policy to recruit retirees
Debt and Deception: How States Avoid Making Hard Fiscal Decisions
Government borrowing occurs whenever the government forgoes control over some future flow of resources or benefits in order to acquire resources for current use. Based on this definition, the authors identify several ways that state governments borrow, which include widely recognized forms of debt as well as types of actions that are less transparent. Case studies for Connecticut, Illinois, and New York document the large amounts of future commit…
Retire to where? A discrete choice model of residential location
Many studies of migration attempt to identify attributes of places that influence residential location decisions. Most such studies relate an area's migration rates to its own attributes, or the flow of migrants between two areas to the attributes of both places. We focus on retirement migration within the US, and extend the literature by using a discrete choice framework in which a person's location decision depends on the attributes of all pote…
An Economic Evaluation of Paid, Volunteer, and Mixed Staffing Options for Public Services
Empirical evaluation of bureaucratic models of inefficiency
Does whole-school reform boost student performance? The case of New York City
Thousands of schools around the country have implemented whole-school reform programs to boost student performance. This paper uses quasi-experimental methods to estimate the impact of whole-school reform on students' reading performance in New York City, where various reform programs were adopted in dozens of troubled elementary schools in the mid-1990s. This paper complements studies based on random assignment by examining a broad-based reform …
On the Measurement and Causes of Technical Inefficiency in Local Public Services: With an Application to Public Education
Journal Article On the Measurement and Causes of Technical Inefficiency in Local Public Services: With an Application to Public Education Get access John Ruggiero, John Ruggiero University of Dayton Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar William Duncombe, William Duncombe Syracuse University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Jerry Miner Jerry Miner Syracuse University Search…
Judicial Intervention and Local Spending: The Case of Local Jails
This study develops a methodology for examining the impact of court orders on local budgets and applies it to one of the most important areas of judicial involvement‐local jails. During the 1980s an increasing number of local jails came under court order due to overcrowded facilities. In many counties this has been matched by equally rapid growth in jail capacity and expenditures. Based on simple comparisons of these trends and case studies of in…
Are Education Cost Functions Ready for Prime Time? An Examination of Their Validity and Reliability
This article makes the case that cost functions are the best available methodology for ensuring consistency between a state's educational accountability system and its education finance system. Because they are based on historical data and well-known statistical methods, cost functions are a particularly flexible and low-cost way to forecast what each school district must spend to meet the standards in a state's accountability system. However, th…
Jonathan Swift and Thomas Sheridan: The Intelligencer
Costs and Factor Substitution in the Provision of Local Fire Services
Evidence on costs and factor substitution is presented for a sample of local fire departments in New York State. The results suggest that fire service production does not fit either Leontief, Cobb-Douglas, or CES technology. In addition, exogenous socioeconomic variables are found to significantly affect public-sector costs and the estimates of factor price elasticities. The findings of relatively low factor demand and substitution elasticities s…
An Economic Evaluation of Paid, Volunteer, and Mixed Staffing Options for Public Services
Economic Change and Fiscal Planning: The Origins of the Fiscal Crisis in New York State
What can policy makers learn from the fiscal experience of New York during the 1980s? By most measures, the state went from a position of fiscal strength in the early 1980s to fiscal crisis by the end of the decade. In their analysis of demographic, social, economic, and fiscal patterns, Roy Bahl and William Duncombe show that the lack of long-term fiscal planning and short-term discipline were the root causes of the turnabout. They call for grea…
The Impact of Courts on the Decision to Expand Jail Capacity
Over the past 20 years, an extensive literature has focused on the role of courts in shaping public policy and management. Yet despite the continuing interest in the topic, very little "hard" evidence exists on the actual impact of court interventions in public agencies. The objective of this study is to estimate the impact of court orders and mandates on public programs in one of the most important areas of judicial intervention, local jails. Th…
State and Local Debt Burdens in the 1980s: A Study in Contrast
State and local governments have coped with major changes in their fiscal environment during the 1980s. The impact of tax and expenditure limitations (Joyce and Mullins, 1991), declining federal aid (Nathan and Lago, 1988), and changes in federal tax policy (Courant and Rubinfeld, 1987) all changed the calculus facing state and local fiscal decision makers. While the effects on their tax and expenditure structures have been studied, the impact on…
Judicial Intervention and Local Spending: The Case of Local Jails
This study develops a methodology for examining the impact of court orders on local budgets and applies it to one of the most important areas of judicial involvement‐local jails. During the 1980s an increasing number of local jails came under court order due to overcrowded facilities. In many counties this has been matched by equally rapid growth in jail capacity and expenditures. Based on simple comparisons of these trends and case studies of in…
On the Measurement and Causes of Technical Inefficiency in Local Public Services: With an Application to Public Education
Journal Article On the Measurement and Causes of Technical Inefficiency in Local Public Services: With an Application to Public Education Get access John Ruggiero, John Ruggiero University of Dayton Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar William Duncombe, William Duncombe Syracuse University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Jerry Miner Jerry Miner Syracuse University Search…
The Tax Decade
Why is it so hard to help central city schools
Many states have implemented educational grant systems designed to provide more aid to school districts that are, by some standard, in greater need. Nevertheless, many if not most central city school systems continue to produce poor educational outcomes, as measured, for example, by test scores and dropout rates. Using data from New York State, this article asks why existing aid formulas fail to provide the assistance that central city school dis…
Empirical evaluation of bureaucratic models of inefficiency
Balancing Conflicting Policy Objectives: The Case of School Finance Reform
Public policy decisions frequently require the establishment of a balance between conflicting objectives. This is especially true for many current state policy efforts, particularly with regard to funding for public education. This policy area, which dominates state-local fiscal relationships, has been subjected to substantial challenges in recent years. While local governments have traditionally exercised significant control over public educatio…
Identifying low-performance public schools
Retire to where? A discrete choice model of residential location
Many studies of migration attempt to identify attributes of places that influence residential location decisions. Most such studies relate an area's migration rates to its own attributes, or the flow of migrants between two areas to the attributes of both places. We focus on retirement migration within the US, and extend the literature by using a discrete choice framework in which a person's location decision depends on the attributes of all pote…
Place Characteristics and Residential Location Choice Among the Retirement-Age Population
Although income tax reductions might influence the location decisions of recent retirees, whether or not the economic benefits associated with these population gains outweigh the accompanying revenue losses is an important area for further research. A more cost-effective strategy may be for states to focus on marketing their amenities rather than using fiscal policy to recruit retirees
Does whole-school reform boost student performance? The case of New York City
Thousands of schools around the country have implemented whole-school reform programs to boost student performance. This paper uses quasi-experimental methods to estimate the impact of whole-school reform on students' reading performance in New York City, where various reform programs were adopted in dozens of troubled elementary schools in the mid-1990s. This paper complements studies based on random assignment by examining a broad-based reform …
Are Education Cost Functions Ready for Prime Time? An Examination of Their Validity and Reliability
This article makes the case that cost functions are the best available methodology for ensuring consistency between a state's educational accountability system and its education finance system. Because they are based on historical data and well-known statistical methods, cost functions are a particularly flexible and low-cost way to forecast what each school district must spend to meet the standards in a state's accountability system. However, th…
Introduction to Education Cost Functions: Recent Developments In Their Estimation and Applications to Education Policy
Debt and Deception: How States Avoid Making Hard Fiscal Decisions
Government borrowing occurs whenever the government forgoes control over some future flow of resources or benefits in order to acquire resources for current use. Based on this definition, the authors identify several ways that state governments borrow, which include widely recognized forms of debt as well as types of actions that are less transparent. Case studies for Connecticut, Illinois, and New York document the large amounts of future commit…
Economics (15 works) · Political science (14 works) · Business (10 works) · Public economics (10 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Finance (8 works) · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth (7 works) · Public Administration (7 works) · Psychology (6 works) · School Choice and Performance (6 works)