Recent studies examining the relationship between legislative majorities and state budgets have presented mixed results. We provide new insight on this relationship by employing stochastic frontier analysis to model the maximum potential budgets that could be feasibly produced, given a set of...

Georgia's HOPE Scholarship is a merit-based aid program intended to provide educational resources for qualified Georgia residents who attend college within the state. The sole determinant of HOPE eligibility is high school grade point average (GPA), which may differ by school district (county)....

Some Georgia school systems award more HOPE scholarships than their academic achievement predicts, creating a geographically determined benefit that will be compounded into local real estate values. Using a two-stage regression methodology, we test to see if these scholarship ``over-awards'' are...