Local Government Overlap
23 September 2019
Students Writing Their Own Exam Questions
11 September 2019
Writing good exam questions is hard. If done correctly, the student should have no idea the lengths you went through to write a good set of questions. But maybe they should know just how difficult it really is. This semester I tried an experiment: allow my masters students a chance to write their own midterm exam (with some pretty specific guidelines). We’ll see how it turns out, but so far I have been impressed with how much they have taken to the idea.
How a type of local government you may have never heard of may be costing you a bit more
20 March 2019
I recently had the pleasure of writing a blog post for the London School of Economic’s US Centre Blog. It covers a recent publication in State and Local Government Review on the implications of overlapping local governments on local public employment in the US. You can find more information about this piece here. See below for the full text of the post as well as a link to the original.
Recent Work
- “The Fiscal Impacts of Urban Sprawl: Evidence from U.S. County Areas.” Public Budgeting & Finance Abstract pdf
- “Local Government Fragmentation: What Do We Know?” State and Local Government Review Abstract pdf
- “Do Cities and Counties Attempt to Circumvent Changes in Their Autonomy by Creating Special Districts?” The American Review of Public Administration 49 (2): 203-217. Abstract pdf
- “Patterns in Special District Creation and Dissolution.” Abstract pdf
Current Teaching
- PSPA 723: Seminar in Administrative Theory, August–December 2019. now on
- PSPA 611: Public Revenue Analysis and Financial Management, August–October 2019. now on