David R. Agrawal
Ph.D. Candidate
University
of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Current Fields of Interest
Public Finance: Taxation, Political Economy, Urban
Biography
David's primary field of research is public finance - with
an emphasis on taxation and fiscal federalism. His research agenda focuses on
both theoretical and empirical ways of incorporating spatial relationships into
existing models of tax competition by allowing for tax rates to vary not only
across states, but within states. David has studied the optimality of
preferential tax zones near international borders. He is also researching
whether local taxes fall or rise as a function of distance to the nearest state
border. David's research on this topic - ''The Tax Gradient: Do Local Sales
Taxes Reduce Tax Differentials at State Borders?'' - was awarded the 2011 Peggy and Richard Musgrave Prize. An
additional paper analyzes how the strategic reaction to vertical externalities
varies within a federation if the federal government has multiple horizontal
competitors. An implication of this research agenda is that state or
international borders can result in otherwise homogenous jurisdictions setting
non-uniform sales tax rates solely because the jurisdictions differ in spatial
proximity to the border, which carries the implications that tax incidence or
behavioral responses to sales taxes are heterogeneous within a state. Feel free
to browse his research using the links below and to contact him with any
questions. Starting in August 2012, David
will join the faculty in the Department
of Economics of the Terry
College of Business at the University of Georgia.