Essays in dynamic optimal taxation: working experience, unemployment scarring and poverty

This thesis investigates the design of optimal tax systems in dynamic environments. The first essay characterizes the optimal tax system where wages depend on stochastic shocks and work experience. In addition to redistributive and efficiency motives, the taxation of inexperienced workers depends on a second-best requirement that encourages work experience, a social insurance motive and incentive effects. Calibrations using U.S. data yield higher expected optimal marginal income tax rates for experienced workers for most of the inexperienced workers. They confirm that the average marginal income tax rate increases (decreases) with age when shocks and work experience are substitutes (complements). Finally, more variability in experienced workers' earnings prospects leads to increasing tax rates since income taxation acts as a social insurance mechanism. In the second essay, the properties of an optimal tax system are investigated in a dynamic private information economy where labor market frictions create unemployment that destroys workers' human capital. A two-skill type model is considered where wages and employment are endogenous. I find that the optimal tax system distorts the first-period wages of all workers below their efficient levels which leads to more employment. The standard no-distortion-at-the-top result no longer holds due to the combination of private information and the destruction of human capital. I show this result analytically under the Maximin social welfare function and confirm it numerically for a general social welfare function. I also investigate the use of a training program and job creation subsidies. The final essay analyzes the optimal linear tax system when there is a population of individuals whose perceptions of savings are linked to their disposable income and their family background through family cultural transmission. Aside from the standard equity/efficiency trade-off, taxes account for the endogeneity of perceptions through two channels. First, taxing labor decreases income, which decreases the perception of savings through time. Second, taxation on savings corrects for the misperceptions of workers and thus savings and labor decisions. Numerical simulations confirm that behavioral issues push labor income taxes upward to finance saving subsidies. Government transfers to individuals are also decreased to finance those same subsidies.

Wind Shear, Gust, and Yaw-Induced Dynamic Stall on Wind-Turbine Blades

This study examined the effect of a spanwise angle of attack gradient on the growth and stability of a dynamic stall vortex in a rotating system. It was found that a spanwise angle of attack gradient induces a corresponding spanwise vorticity gradient, which, in combination with spanwise flow, results in a redistribution of circulation along the blade. Specifically, when modelling the angle of attack gradient experienced by a wind turbine at the 30% span position during a gust event, the spanwise vorticity gradient was aligned such that circulation was transported from areas of high circulation to areas of low circulation, increasing the local dynamic stall vortex growth rate, which corresponds to an increase in the lift coefficient, and a decrease in the local vortex stability at this point. Reversing the relative alignment of the spanwise vorticity gradient and spanwise flow results in circulation transport from areas of low circulation generation to areas of high circulation generation, acting to reduce local circulation and stabilise the vortex. This circulation redistribution behaviour describes a mechanism by which the fluctuating loads on a wind turbine are magnified, which is detrimental to turbine lifetime and performance. Therefore, an understanding of this phenomenon has the potential to facilitate optimised wind turbine design.

International Capital Flows and Monetary Policy Spillovers

This dissertation examines the drivers and implications of international capital flows. The overarching motivation is the observation that countries not at the centre of global financial markets are subject to considerable spillovers from centre countries, notably from their monetary policy. I present new empirical evidence on the determinants of the observed patterns of international capital flows and monetary policy spillovers, and study their effect on both financial markets and the real economy. In Chapter 2 I provide evidence on the determinants of a puzzling negative correlation observed between productivity growth and net capital inflows to developing and emerging market economies (EMEs) since 1980. By disaggregating net capital inflows into their gross components, I show that this negative correlation is explained by capital outflows related to purchases of very liquid assets from the fastest growing countries. My results suggest a desire for international portfolio diversification in liquid assets by fast growing countries is driving much of the original puzzle. In the reminder of my dissertation I pivot to study the foreign characteristics that drive international capital flows and monetary policy spillovers, with a particular focus on the role of unconventional monetary policy in the United States (U.S.). In Chapter 3 I show that a significant portion of the heterogeneity in EMEs' asset price adjustment following the quantitative easing operations by the Federal Reserve (the Fed) during 2008-2014 can be explained by the degree of bilateral capital market frictions between these countries and the U.S. This is true even after accounting for capital controls, exchange rate regimes, and domestic monetary policies. Chapter 4, co-authored with Michal Ksawery Popiel, studies unconventional monetary policy in a small open economy, looking specifically at the case of Canada since the global financial crisis. We quantify the effect Canadian unconventional monetary policy shocks had on the real economy, while carefully controlling for and quantifying spillovers from U.S. unconventional monetary policy. Our results indicate that the Bank of Canada's unconventional monetary policy increased Canadian output significantly from 2009-2010, but that spillovers from the Fed's policy were even more important for increasing Canadian output after 2008.

Monitoring of Dynamic Bridge Behaviour Using Digital Image Correlation

Bridges are a critical part of North America’s transportation network that need to be assessed frequently to inform bridge management decision making. Visual inspections are usually implemented for this purpose, during which inspectors must observe and report any excess displacements or vibrations. Unfortunately, these visual inspections are subjective and often highly variable and so a monitoring technology that can provide quantitative measurements to supplement inspections is needed. Digital Image Correlation (DIC) is a novel monitoring technology that uses digital images to measure displacement fields without any contact with the bridge. In this research, DIC and accelerometers were used to investigate the dynamic response of a railway bridge reported to experience large lateral displacements. Displacements were estimated using accelerometer measurements and were compared to DIC measurements. It was shown that accelerometers can provide reasonable estimates of displacement for zero-mean lateral displacements. By comparing measurements in the girder and in the piers, it was shown that for the bridge monitored, the large lateral displacements originated in the steel casting bearings positioned above the piers, and not in the piers themselves. The use of DIC for evaluating the effectiveness of rehabilitation of the LaSalle Causeway lift bridge in Kingston, Ontario was also investigated. Vertical displacements were measured at midspan and at the lifting end of the bridge during a static test and under dynamic live loading. The bridge displacements were well within the operating limits, however a gap at the lifting end of the bridge was identified. Rehabilitation of the bridge was conducted and by comparing measurements before and after rehabilitation, it was shown that the gap was successfully closed. Finally, DIC was used to monitor the midspan vertical and lateral displacements in a monitoring campaign of five steel rail bridges. DIC was also used to evaluate the effectiveness of structural rehabilitation of the lateral bracing of a bridge. Simple finite element models are developed using DIC measurements of displacement. Several lessons learned throughout this monitoring campaign are discussed in the hope of aiding future researchers.

The Capital Sculpture of Wells Cathedral, c. 1184-1210

The understudied capital sculpture of Wells Cathedral in Somerset, England (c. 1184-1210) provides ample opportunity of expanding the current scholarship and understanding of interior ecclesiastical sculpture in a West Country cathedral. While the Gothic style of architecture is typically understood as, according to Paul Binski (2014), rational in execution and reception, the capital sculpture at Wells Cathedral has been considered illogical in terms of both its iconography and location within the nave, transepts, and north porch. Utilizing Michael Camille’s post/anti-iconographical approach, this project examines the Wells figural capitals in five case studies: labour, Old and New Testament Scenes, animals and beast fables, busts, and monsters and hybrids. Each group of capitals will be approached with an understanding that this type of art was viewed by people of different classes and professions, with each viewer bringing their own personal experiences and abilities into how they could have read and understood these types of images. Therefore, the capitals at Wells must be read through layers of meaning and interpretation while also considering their locations within the cathedral and how they react and respond to surrounding figural capitals.

Between Principle and Practicality: A Dynamic Realist Examination of Independence in the Canadian Justice System

This work examines independence in the Canadian justice system using an approach adapted from new legal realist scholarship called ‘dynamic realism’. This approach proposes that issues in law must be considered in relation to their recursive and simultaneous development with historic, social and political events. Such events describe ‘law in action’ and more holistically demonstrate principles like independence, rule of law and access to justice. My dynamic realist analysis of independence in the justice system employs a range methodological tools and approaches from the social sciences, including: historical and historiographical study; public administrative; policy and institutional analysis; an empirical component; as well as constitutional, statutory interpretation and jurisprudential analysis. In my view, principles like independence represent aspirational ideals in law which can be better understood by examining how they manifest in legal culture and in the legal system. This examination focuses on the principle and practice of independence for both lawyers and judges in the justice system, but highlights the independence of the Bar. It considers the inter-relation between lawyer independence and the ongoing refinement of judicial independence in Canadian law. It also considers both independence of the Bar and the Judiciary in the context of the administration of justice, and practically illustrates the interaction between these principles through a case study of a specific aspect of the court system. This work also focuses on recent developments in the principle of Bar independence and its relation to an emerging school of professionalism scholarship in Canada. The work concludes by describing the principle of independence as both conditional and dynamic, but rooted in a unitary concept for both lawyers and judges. In short, independence can be defined as impartiality, neutrality and autonomy of legal decision-makers in the justice system to apply, protect and improve the law for what has become its primary normative purpose: facilitating access to justice. While both independence of the Bar and the Judiciary are required to support access to independent courts, some recent developments suggest the practical interactions between independence and access need to be the subject of further research, to better account for both the principles and the practicalities of the Canadian justice system.