Semester

Summer

Date of Graduation

2022

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Chambers College of Business and Economics

Department

Economics

Committee Chair

Josh Hall

Committee Co-Chair

Bryan McCannon

Committee Member

Bryan McCannon

Committee Member

Feng Yao

Committee Member

Matt Ryan

Abstract

This dissertation presents three chapters related to each other in their application to public economics. In the study of how utility-maximizing or goal-seeking units achieve economic outcomes, this dissertation presents results for a diverse range of agents including prosecutors and liberal arts colleges. Co-authored with Dr. Bryan McCannon of West Virginia University, the first chapter examines an interesting feature of prosecutor elections, where the pool of potential challengers to an incumbent comes primarily from subordinates within the office. We develop a signaling model that analyzes whether entry into the political race by a subordinate provides voters with useful information. In the second chapter, I use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to examine the efficiency of non-elite liberal arts colleges. The third chapter examines how well high-ranking public school districts are currently using these resources. I employ DEA to examine the efficiency of the U.S. News & World Report 100 top-ranked school districts in Pennsylvania.

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