Weber, CarolineImboden, Christian2019-09-182019-09-182019-09-18https://hdl.handle.net/1794/24846This dissertation deals with important issues in the field of public finance, namely, how we raise government revenue via taxation and how we spend it in the form of public goods. The first substantive chapter examines the incidence of corporate income taxes on the owners of corporate capital, the shareholders. By allowing stock markets to value the future impacts of corporate income tax changes, I am able to estimate their incidence on shareholders using changes in stock prices around changes in state-level corporate income tax rates. Estimates are generally statistically insignificant for tax decreases, but stock prices respond to tax increases with an approximately ten percent decline for each percent of tax increase. In the next chapter, co-authors and I examine income reporting using tax and survey data. As survey income data are frequently used by economists, it is imperative that incomes are measured as accurately as possible. We find that there are systematic differences in how individual respondents report their wage income to the Current Population Survey versus the Internal Revenue Service that are related to demographic characteristics, including age and educational attainment. However, there is great heterogeneity in misreporting within groups. In the final substantive chapter, I examine strategic interactions between different levels of government. I find that there are theoretical cases where a subordinate level of government would benefit from sabotaging the plans of a dominant level of government. I also find that there are theoretical cases where competition between levels of government can be welfare-improving for citizens of the local government. This dissertation includes previously unpublished co-authored material.en-USAll Rights Reserved.Measurement ErrorPublic EconomicsPublic FinanceTaxationElectronic Thesis or Dissertation