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School of Public Policy

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https://hdl.handle.net/1853/70716

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Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

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Technology Policy and Assessment Center

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https://finding-aids.library.gatech.edu/agents/corporate_entities/1033

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Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 82

Path-dependencies faced by select policies toward solid-state lighting

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-12-18) Smith, Alexander M.

The studies in this dissertation – concerning inter-firm R&D collaboration, patent production and sharing, and electric power infrastructure – will illustrate the influence of path-dependency on outcomes delivered by policies stimulating innovation in the lighting sector. This dissertation will build upon prior findings in path-dependency studies by applying path-dependency to distinct policies: collaboration-enhancing policies, patent licensing requirements, and lighting subsidies paired with emissions regulations. In doing so, the studies will highlight the social factors that influence lighting innovation. Just as the dominance of the electric lightbulb was not produced from a good idea alone – needing trade cartels and patent attorneys to achieve just its initial growth – so too do contemporary ideas for changing the way we illuminate the world rely on resources far greater than new technology ideas alone. In highlighting factors that frustrate the aims of contemporary innovation policies towards lighting, this dissertation aims to inform the design of future innovation policies such that future policies may account for influential factors and design strategies that nullify or take advantage of such factors to enact change.
Three essays on the growth of the market for patents and its challenges to innovation policy

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-10-01) Kwon, Seok Beom

A sheer number of US patents have been transferred through market transactions and that the size of the market for patents has grown. In this dissertation, I conduct three complementary studies to examine how the market for patents shapes technological innovation. Drawing on the broad discussion of the benefits and costs of patent ownership transfer for invention, I develop three research questions, and in three essays I address each of them through building theoretical models and conducting empirical analysis. In the first study, I examine a firm's economic incentive for purchasing patents to gain strategic benefit over market rivals and how the firm's patents purchase results in the market rival's innovative activities. In the second study, I investigate the antitrust issue of patent consolidation caused by the purchase of multiple patents by a small number of firms and the impact of a governmental authorities' regulation of the generated patent monopolies by patent consolidation on the development of follow-on innovations. In the last study, I analyze the impact of granting a firm the exclusive access to a university's inventions through patents transfer on the follow-on innovative activities. Altogether, this dissertation contributes to advancing our understanding of the distinctive nature of the market for patents from the market for technology, and it extends the conventional discussion of how the patents system may affect innovation.
The co-construction of court-made patent policy and firm strategy

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-07-30) Sung, Elie J.

The need to accommodate new technologies at an increasingly fast pace has led the judicial branch to become a key source of changes in patent policy in the United States. This dissertation examines the co-construction of patent policy and innovation strategy in the judicial branch of government. Its main contributions are to the economics of innovation literature and to the policy process literature. A long-lasting debate on the relation between patent and innovation has led to a multitude of studies supporting each side of the debate about the desirability of strong patents, as well as a lack of conclusive empirical evidence, mainly due to methodological challenges in estimating the impact of a change in patent strength. Leveraging a shock created by the US Supreme Court, I show that the common belief that weaker patents lead to fewer innovations is wrong (for a specific aspect of patent), while accounting for the heterogeneous patent-related strategies. Using mixed-methodology (interviews, court documents and census data), I find that the arguments made in court mirror the debate in the academic literature and I show that impact on innovation is contingent on firms’ characteristics and innovation strategies. Motivated by the heterogeneous impact of patent policy, stakeholders attempt to influence the US Supreme Court decisions. Therefore, taking advantage of this setting, I address a gap in the policy process literature, which has neglected the judicial branch of government. This dissertation builds on perspectives from the legal and political science literatures, examining policymaking processes in the US Supreme Court to incorporate the judicial branch of government in the corpus of policy process literature. Focusing on the role of stakeholders and how they use information strategically, I find evidence of influence of different types of information at the two phases of the policy process, a distinction unobserved in settings considered in the existing policy process literature.
Innovation in government: The diffusion of policy and organizational change

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-07-22) St. Clair, Rebekah

Beginning in the late nineteenth century Woodrow Wilson (1887) proposed the idea that government can be divided into two broad functions: politics and administration. While the debate remains about the extent to which these functions of government are actually separated, Wilson contributed a critical part of how we think about public administration: that there are in fact different dimensions to government. These different dimensions are no doubt related in varying degrees (Svara, 2014), but where literature has been lacking is in teasing out the complexity of government by trying to understand the different dimensions, specifically how they relate to each other. To better understand these relations, the following dissertation looks at two dimensions of government that are theoretically and practically designed to change to meet the needs of their communities. Specifically, I ask: how is the policy-making function of government related to the administrative/organizational function in multilevel systems of government? Here, I examine the extent to which these two different types of change are driven by the same factors. Due to the interwoven nature of our federalist system, I further examine how these functions relate both over time and at all levels of government, and in two different cases: one where change begins at the federal government level and diffuses downward, and one where change begins at the local level and diffuses upward. Using both logistic and qualitative comparative analyses (QCAs), I ultimately conclude that change is not just change. Policy and organizational change are largely driven by different factors; however, how these two dimensions of government differ is highly contingent on both level of government and origin of change.
Bridging the valley of death in biomedicine with translational research: Assessing the impact of National Institutes of Health’s Clinical and Translational Science Award

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-06-21) Kim, Yeon Hak Hak

Despite large investment in biomedical research by government, foundations and private organizations around the world, we are not experiencing an increase in the new medicine reaching the market. Many studies point out that this productivity decline in biomedicine is mainly due to the difficulty in translating basic science into clinical setting. Translational research emerged as a key research policy tool to address this problem over the last decade. Translational research aims to bridge the gap between basic science and clinical science to accelerate the process of moving research innovation into clinical use. In the United States, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) took the lead in supporting translational research by developing the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) in 2006. In this dissertation, the author examined the impact of NIH’s effort on supporting translational research focusing on two topics, which are collaboration network structure and production of translational publications. Regarding the collaboration landscape, the change of social network analysis measures showed that the CTSA award had an impact in changing the biomedical research landscape into denser and less centralized form. The result of the network regression models showed that receiving CTSA award led individual institutions to collaborate more with other institutions. For the test on the production of translational publications, which is the second topic of interest, a unique measure using the composition of forward citation of publications is introduced. The results from difference-in-difference regression and mediation tests showed that the CTSA award leads to the increase of publications and this relationship is mediated by inter-collaboration feature of institutions after the CTSA program is well stabilized. The author expects that the study will provide insight into the effects of translational research initiatives and have implications on the government policy regarding biomedical research more broadly.
The effects of distributed solar on utilities and their customers

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-04-01) Beppler, Ross C.

This dissertation evaluates the impact increasing penetrations of distributed solar will have on the electricity industry. It reconciles an analysis of the effect of increasing DPV penetration at the system scale, with an understanding of how installing DPV alters behavior at the household level. To provide such a comprehensive view on the role of DPV in the evolving utility, I construct a utility financial model and populate that with customer load and solar data. I compliment that analysis with utility billing data to gain insights on the interaction between solar installation, rate design, and electricity consumption. Results indicate that solar is likely to exacerbate existing inequities in cost allocation, the value of the solar resource is highly contextual, and installing solar is likely to change household energy consumption patterns. By incorporating insights from the macro and micro level, I demonstrate the need for markets, regulations, and rates which send appropriate signals to encourage system level efficiencies. This dissertation bridges utility modeling literature with empirical work to better understand prosumer behavior and shed light on the future of utility operations.
Electricity infrastructure threats and policy response

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2018-11-08) McGrath, Jenna K. C.

The overarching research question of this dissertation is how are policymakers responding to threats to the electricity grid? The database of attacks on the United States electricity system, created and analyzed in Chapter 2, underscores that targeted attacks have been a persistent threat for the electric grid for the past nearly 50 years. In recent years, attacks have become more sophisticated and coordinated. Given this development, Chapter 3 considers how policy makers have responded to grid attacks, focusing on a more recent timeframe of seventeen years and uses risk perception theory as a guide. The results of the regression time series analysis indicate that policymakers respond to malicious attacks on the grid in terms of federal funding and allocation to grid-related improvements. There is no response associated with disruptions caused by severe weather or human or technical failures. This suggests that policymakers are perceiving malicious attacks as a threat and are stating policy priorities to address this issue in the federal budget appropriations. In addition to funding for emergency response and funding for research, federal policy, utilities have proposed measures to improve grid security. Chapter 4 addresses the adequacy of this response. The effectiveness of current grid security standards are simulated when faced with actual attack scenarios as well as possible future attacks that become increasingly more sophisticated and threatening in nature. The simulations indicate that security upgrades involving improved lighting and visibility are not effective, while improved barriers are effective. More broadly, the limited effectiveness of the proposed security upgrades suggests that there is substantial scope for research and testing, and for consideration of how utilities are securing electric infrastructure assets. Chapter 5 considers critical infrastructure as a whole, evaluating federal emergency response and management across the different critical infrastructure sectors. Here, the goal is to determine how electricity sector response compares to the policy responses to the challenges and events impacting other sectors. Analysis across multiple large incidents affecting different components of critical infrastructure shows a largely linear and consistent relationship between the impact of a disaster in terms of both human health and cost, and the sum of the public sector funding and insurance response. Attacks on the U.S. electric grid are a continuing challenge, as demonstrated in Chapter 2. In line with the prevailing risk perception literature, the analysis in Chapter 3 indicates that malicious attacks on the electric grid receive a larger response, in terms of federal R&D funding, than natural disasters or failures. This study finds that threats to national security are a driver of policy priorities and actions to both repair and improve the electric grid. Federal and state governments as well as the utilities and private sector bear significant costs when attacks occur. As concluded in Chapter 4, utility efforts to increase security are not fully public, but those that can be evaluated have significant weaknesses. Across all infrastructures, Chapter 5 demonstrates that government and private insurance payments largely pay fully for the impact of each disaster, irrespective of cause or sector, with terrorist attacks receiving emergency response funding at the same level as accidents and natural disasters. Similarly, federal research and development funding related to grid security has remained largely steady, with increases in response to large incidents irrespective of cause.
Primary and secondary subnational debt markets

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2018-04-04) Riegel, Konul A.

U.S. state and local (subnational) governments issue municipal bonds in the capital markets to finance infrastructure projects such as schools, roads, and bridges. These securities are first sold in the primary municipal bond market and subsequently resold in the secondary market. This dissertation explores the primary and secondary subnational debt markets and their impact on state and local governments. The first chapter provides background information on the municipal bond market. The second chapter estimates the market-implied marginal tax rates associated with tax-exempt debt. The third chapter estimates the effect of the secondary municipal bond market on future cost of borrowing for debt-issuing governments. The fourth chapter explores why some securities trade thousands of times in the secondary market while most never trade. The fifth chapter concludes the dissertation and discusses relevant policy implications. The size of the subnational debt has surpassed $3:8 trillion as of the third quarter of 2017. Understanding the primary and secondary municipal bonds markets and the impact of these markets on issuers can allow thousands of debt-issuing state and local governments to save billions of dollars in borrowing costs. This is important because reducing borrowing costs, in turn, can free up funds for other public services such as education and health care. Debt is a crucial part of public finances. As such, this dissertation contributes to the public finance literature, particularly in the area of public financial management research. Chapter 1: Background. The majority of state and local governments in the U.S. have debt-issuing capacity. There is quite a bit of heterogeneity in the types of issuers and financial products that are issued in the municipal bond market. The variety of market participants (underwriters, dealer-brokers, etc.) add further complexity to the debt performance outcomes of issuers. The main feature that sets the muni market apart from other capital markets is the tax exemption of interest income - most municipal bonds are exempt from federal, state, and certain local income taxes. Chapter 2: Primary Market. Eliminating or limiting tax exempt-status of municipal bonds becomes a potential policy alternative in periods of budgetary distress, given that taxes foregone due to exemption amount to billions of dollars per year to the federal government. This chapter estimates the implied marginal tax rates associated with tax-exempt munis to understand the tax-reduction benefits accrued to state and local governments. In this analysis, tax-exempt munis are matched to near-identical taxable munis, which creates a unique quasi-experimental design. Results of the Random Coefficients Model (RCM), which accounts for issuer- and issuance-level unobserved effects, show significant heterogeneity in implied marginal tax rates across issuer types (e.g. counties vs. school districts) and over time. The longstanding muni puzzle, the finding that interest on tax-exempt bonds is higher than the theory would predict, disappears for general purpose governments, once the nested structure and the product and issuer heterogeneity of the municipal bond market are taken into account. Results imply that municipal forms of government benefit the most from the tax exemption, while special districts benefit the least. Chapter 3: Effect of the Secondary Market On the Primary Market. The primary market for state and local government borrowing receives great attention yet researchers as well as subnational debt-issuing governments tend to ignore the secondary municipal bond market. However, if the primary market rewards the performance of the issuer’s outstanding debt in the secondary market, then state and local governments are neglecting an important piece of the puzzle and the potential to reduce future borrowing costs. This study combines large proprietary databases of primary and secondary market information to test whether the performance of existing debt in the secondary market affects future cost of borrowing for state and local governments. Results show that fluctuations in the secondary market prices and yields impact future borrowing costs. Further, the effect of the secondary market varies significantly by issuer. Findings imply that the secondary market contains an additional layer of real-time quality information not captured by other lagged metrics such as credit ratings. Chapter 4: Secondary Market. The municipal bond market is full of peculiarities. One such puzzling fact is that some securities trade thousands of times in the secondary market while most do not trade at all. Studies have shown that these differences in trading frequency cannot simply be attributed to transaction costs - actively traded bonds are not necessarily less expensive to trade. Understanding what accounts for such distinct patterns of trading activity can inform investors and issuers about market demand and potentially improve government debt issuance outcomes and household portfolio allocation decisions. This paper examines the dispersion of trading activity of municipal securities in the secondary market using large databases of security- and transaction-level information. Results show that safer and high quality securities tend to be taken off the market quickly and most likely absorbed into the portfolios of buy-and-hold type investors. Further, the call complexity hypothesis reveals distinct trading patterns for different trade types (interdealer trades vs. retail customer trades) as the call date approaches. Finally, there is some evidence of speculative trading in the secondary market which further contributes to the wide dispersion in trading activity among various securities. Chapter 5: Conclusion. The first set of findings show that the effect of the municipal bond tax exemption policy are substantial. Smaller municipalities benefit the most from the ability to issue tax-exempt munis. Second, I find that the secondary market contains an additional layer of real-time quality information not captured by other lagged metrics such as credit ratings. This information contained in the secondary market performance of the issuer’s existing debt has a direct impact on future borrowing costs for state and local governments. Finally, hyper-trading in secondary market for municipal bonds is explained using several conceptual frameworks, such as portfolio absorption, speculative trading, and call complexity.
The locational patterns and socioeconomic effects of the new markets tax credit and low income housing tax credit in distressed metropolitan census tracts

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2018-01-12) Henderson, Michael Joseph

This dissertation investigates the role of two federal place-based programs, the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) and Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), as tools for revitalizing distressed communities. The first empirical chapter organizes low-income, high-poverty metropolitan census tracts into a typology based on their demographic, class status, built environment, and location characteristics in 2000. Principal components analysis uncovered three prominent neighborhood dimensions: class status, urbanization, and black socioeconomic isolation. These dimensions were entered into a cluster analysis, which identified ten distinct types of poor metropolitan neighborhoods. NMTC investment, LIHTC investment, and socioeconomic ascent were highly correlated across neighborhood types. This finding supports an assumption made in previous studies that developers, who play an important role in determining where subsidized projects are located, are motivated to seek out areas primed to undergo socioeconomic ascent. The neighborhood dimension describing the degree of urbanization was only baseline variable consistently related to both sources of place-based investment and future socioeconomic ascent, suggesting that developer preferences are informed by observable urbanization-related factors. These findings were then applied to the development of a model for estimating the effects of place-based investment on a neighborhood’s socioeconomic trajectory. I use a variation of propensity score matching allowing for multiple treatment conditions to compare 2000 to 2010 changes in income, poverty, unemployment, and home values between census tracts that received different combinations of investment through (a) both NMTC and LIHTC, (b) NMTC alone, (c) LIHTC alone, and (d) neither program. Findings revealed that the addition of NMTC had a positive impact on socioeconomic trajectories, while adding LIHTC-subsidized housing into a census tract could have a positive, negligible, or negative impact, depending on the comparison condition. Overall, this dissertation contributes to a better understanding of why certain types of poor places may be more likely to benefit from these types of market-driven place-based initiatives than others, and introduces a more integrated and nuanced approach for evaluating programs that operate within shared geographic space to address different facets of neighborhood poverty.
Postsecondary success outcomes for veteran and nonveteran students at a public university in Georgia

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2017-11-13) Boyd, Jonathan R.

Every year, the federal government distributes $11 billion in education benefits to nearly one million veterans (GAO, 2013). Despite the substantial price tag and reach of these benefits, we understand very little about how veteran students fare in postsecondary programs and why outcomes may be different for veteran students. Theory and related evidence predict that veteran students should be less successful than their nonveteran peers, yet the limited past research suggests that they are actually as successful as, if not more successful than, nonveterans. This is the student veteran paradox. I posit seven potential explanations to resolve this paradox: bias in past research, background characteristics of veterans, enrollment behaviors of veterans, maturation from delayed entry, education aid benefits for veterans, unobservable factors associated with selection into the military, or the direct effects of military service. I use OLS regression and logistic regression to assess three metrics of student success: grades, retention, and completion. I also leverage variations in the GI Bill program to assess whether higher levels of funding lead to better student success outcomes. Finally, I use matching to test whether unobservable factors associated with military enlistment or the direct effects of military service could drive veteran student success. Student veterans hold many characteristics that predict lower probabilities of college success, but veterans and nonveterans generally have similar academic outcomes. When controlling for background characteristics, enrollment patterns, age, and term of entry, predicted first year GPA is lower for veterans, but veterans are more likely to return after the first year and are more likely to graduate. Generally, students with higher levels of veteran education benefits xii have better retention and graduation outcomes, but aid levels seem to have little impact on first year grades. Veterans still have lower grades than similar matched nonveterans, but the veterans are more likely to return after the first year and are more likely to graduate. For retention and graduation, these results rule out the bias, background characteristics, and maturation explanations, but support the enrollment patterns and funding explanations. The results are consistent with the direct effects explanation, but the selection explanation cannot be ruled out completely.