Of course, it would also be very difficult to actually measure marginal taxes net of marginal benefits.
First, the Bureau of Labour Statistics changed its surveying techniques in 1994 to make a better job of measuring marginal workers.
This assumption is no longer necessary, because the methods I have used to measure marginal tax rates from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, unemployment insurance expansions and the Affordable Care Act can also be applied to the Massachusetts health reform law.
The periodic marginal bone resorption was quantified by subtracting previously measured marginal bone length from the one measured each time.
A blinded investigator measured marginal resorption on fresh radiographs obtained for 14 of the 16 patients (two had died) and compared these with the post-implantation images.
Specifically, while hedonic prices measure marginal changes in housing prices due to marginal changes in air quality, our contingent valuation exercise refers to a non-marginal change in air quality.
This point of departure is quite powerful, because the first order condition of the problem of the consumer, which equates the marginal rates of substitution to the price ratios, reveal that prices measure marginal utilities (up to an uninteresting multiplicative constant, the marginal utility of money) even when those prices are distorted.
There are two reasons for doing so: first, because we are measuring marginal tax rates instead of average tax rates, a lump-sum rebate makes our taxes progressive; and second, because a very large fraction of the government's budget is used to finance transfers directly.
The skunking of all five special election budget measures backed by Governor Arnold and the Can't Shoot Straight Legislature was a clear signal that voters are way beyond fed up with half-measures, marginal fixes and smoke and mirrors in Sacramento.
"Measuring Marginal Revenue Product of College Athletics: Updated Estimates," in Economics of College Sports, edited by Rodney Fort and John Fizel (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2004).
