Audit report on the City of State Center, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2007

Audit report on the City of State Center, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2007

Audit report on the Hiawatha Water Department, Hiawatha, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2007

Audit report on the Hiawatha Water Department, Hiawatha, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2007

Transfers, social safety nets and economic growth

The role of social safety nets in the form of redistributional transfersand wage subsidies is analyzed using a simple model of criminal behavior. Itis argued that public welfare programs act as a crime--preventing ordisruption--preventing devices because they tend to increase the opportunitycost of engaging in crime or disruptive activities. It is shown that, in thepresence of a leisure choice, wage subsidies may be better than pure transfers. Using a simple growth model, it is shown that it is not optimal for the governmentto try to fully eliminate crime. The optimal size of the public welfare programis found and it is argued that public welfare should be financed with income(not lump--sum) taxes, despite the fact that income taxes are distortionary.The intuition for this result is that income taxes act as a user fee oncongested public goods and transfers can be thought of as {\it productive}public goods {\it subject to congestion}. Finally, using a cross-section of 75 countries, the partial correlation betweentransfers and growth is shown to be significantly positive.

Audit report on the City of Shenandoah, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2007

Audit report on the City of Shenandoah, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2007