Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5691-7852

Semester

Summer

Date of Graduation

2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Chambers College of Business and Economics

Department

Economics

Committee Chair

Jane Ruseski

Committee Member

Bryan McCannon

Committee Member

Adam Nowak

Committee Member

Kole Reddig

Abstract

In Chapter 1, I reopen the question of whether U.S. firms experience effective tax decreases directly resulting from federal lobbying expenditures by introducing more rigorous causal-inference testing. I first model lobbying as a productive input for the legislator, affecting firm tax outcomes by influencing the share of scarce legislative attention afforded to industry tax priorities. Using multi-industry, firm-level data from 2007 to 2022, I exploit percentage changes in non-industry lobbying as a proxy for political competition facing firms through a novel application of Bartik, shift-share instrumental variable estimation and two-stage residual inclusion. Effects of induced firm lobbying shifts on reported depreciation/amortization and associations with shifts on unrecognized tax benefits first suggest lobbying enables more aggressive tax positioning. Elasticities for corporate income taxes, paid and current, to competition-induced lobbying shifts are estimated as -0.29 to -0.57 and -0.21 to -0.75 respectively across specifications. Consistent with formal theoretical prediction, lower revenue firms reveal significantly stronger negative responsiveness to non-industry lobbying competitive pressure compared to higher revenue firms. Results clarify the process and size of cost advantages obtained outside of conventional competition across industries with potential implications for public finance, economic growth, and future modeling.

In Chapter 2, I investigate electric distribution utility organization with a particular interest in regional overlaps of regulator authority. Overlapping regulation of municipal electric utilities with disjoint principals determining price and investment separately may facilitate additional rents to firms compared to traditionally vertically integrated utilities under a single primary regulator, or utilities with degrees of competition breaking up vertical integration. Leveraging Texas household data from 2005 to 2022, I determine evidence of regional regulatory inefficiency in Texas panhandle electric utility operation consistent with information asymmetry between fragmented and overlapping regulators. Exploiting a 2010 acquisition of electrical distribution assets in Lubbock, Texas by Lubbock Power & Light as a candidate for hypothesized selection, I employ multiple difference-in-differences specifications and estimate predicted increases in household electric billing in excess of acquisition costs. Under conservative assumptions, the permitted regulatory shift in Lubbock in 2010 increased aggregate annual electric utility costs for residential consumers by an estimated $14,834,879 annually for customers of LP&L alone, or $192,853,420 from 2010 to 2022. Results imply 10% higher household electric billing on average, with non-negligible implications for adjacent outcomes, including probabilities of mortgage default/prepayment.

In Chapter 3, I contribute public health policy analysis and reaffirm the importance of measuring adjacent outcomes to investigate unintended policy consequences. Sexually transmitted infection and treatment in particular pose costly public health challenges in the United States and worldwide and have faced additional complication since the COVID-19 pandemic. Using regional STI diagnosis data from the Tennessee Department of Health and Google COVID-19 Mobility data, I test competing hypotheses in the health science literature explaining how the pandemic environment affected STI transmission and treatment. Applying time series structural break methodology on STI cases statewide, and exploiting the timing of Tennessee stay-at-home orders on regional mobility patterns in a IV-Poisson estimation approach, I first estimate 90.3 additional weekly statewide cases of Gonorrhea in Tennessee attributable to the pandemic from July 2020 to December 2021, and establish recoveries in diagnoses rates relative to stable pre-pandemic trends or lower for Chlamydia and Gonorrhea diagnoses, but not for Syphilis or HIV. Negative case count effects from stay-at-home order mobility changes on lagged diagnosis rates are estimated, providing evidence that increases later in pandemic are better explained by disruptions to STI public health services rather than by pandemic-induced behavioral changes affecting STI transmission. Results offer more detailed understanding of pandemic policy population health effects with discussed implications for understanding future public health outcomes and treatment equity for more vulnerable populations.

Comments

This dissertation develops and empirically tests formal microeconomic theory applied to agent behavior and policy environments in corporate taxation, electric utility regulation, and public health. Causal inference methods include difference-in-differences, shift-share instrumental variables, and IV-Poisson estimation.

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