Nirupama Rao

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The Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service is home to research and policy centers, institutes, and initiatives that focus on solving urban problems and strengthening public policy and public service nationally and around the world.

The Financial Access Initiative (FAI) is a consortium of researchers at NYU, Yale, Harvard and IPA focused on finding answers to how financial sectors can better meet the needs of poor households.

Since its founding in 1994, the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy has become the leading academic research center in New York City devoted to the public policy aspects of land use, real estate development and housing.

The Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems (ICIS) is a research and education center founded in January 1998, located at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and directed by Professor Rae Zimmerman. ICIS promotes interdisciplinary approaches to planning, building, and managing the complex world of civil infrastructure systems to meet their social and environmental objectives.

A university-wide, multidisciplinary enterprise, the Institute for Education and Social Policy was founded by former Wagner Dean and NYU Executive Vice President Robert Berne, the Aaron Diamond Foundation's Norm Fruchter, and NYU Steinhardt School of Education Dean Ann Marcus. The Institute investigates urban education issues and studies the impact of public policy on students from poor, disadvantaged, urban communities.

New York University is proud to announce the establishment of the John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. The Center is named in honor of NYU President Emeritus and former Member of Congress, Dr. John Brademas.

The NYUAD Center for Global Public Service and Social Impact's mission is to advance international understanding and effective practice for strengthening the global public service as a driver of social impact in a constantly changing international environment. It is designed to support the entrepreneurial, effective and efficient production of public value by governments, nongovernmental organizations and private social ventures, by working through networks of scholars, opinion leaders and senior executives across the world.

Housed within the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, the Research Center for Leadership in Action (RCLA) creates collaborative learning environments that break down this isolation, foster needed connections and networks, and yield new and practical insights and strategies.

Established in 1996 at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and named in September 2000 in recognition of a generous gift from civic leader Lewis Rudin, the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management is currently led by Mitchell Moss.

The Mission
The purpose of the project is to create and convene an interdisciplinary network of thinkers and doers (the "Network") that could help with making the transition from closed-and-centralized to open-and-collaborative institutions of governance.

The Berman Jewish Policy Archive at NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service is a central address for Jewish communal and social policy, both on the web and in its home at NYU Wagner. Named for its principal funder, The Berman Foundation, BJPA's primary focus is on making the vast amount of policy-relevant material accessible and available to all those who seek it.

Global forces are dramatically changing the environments of children, youth and adults both in the United States and throughout the world. First- and second-generation immigrant children are on their way to becoming the majority of children in the U.S., bringing linguistic and cultural diversity to the institutions with which they come in contact.

NYU Wagner is affiliated with the Nathan Kline Institute, the National Hispanic Health Foundation, and the Transatlantic Policy Consortium.

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Ranked #6 in Public Affairs by U.S. News & World Report, the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service educates the future leaders of public, nonprofit, healthcare and private sector organizations addressing the world's critical issues.

Students who wish to take only a few courses at Wagner must apply as a non-degree student by the appropriate deadlines; however, non-degree and advanced certificate applicants are not eligible for scholarship consideration.

NYU Wagner offers more than 150 different courses, allowing students to select not only by degree and specialization within that degree, but also by topic area.

Capstone is learning in action. Part of the core curriculum of the MPA and MUP programs at NYU Wagner, the Capstone program combines critical learning with an opportunity to perform a public service.

The flexible and fluid world of public service requires a broad and transferable education. Housed in a school of public service, rather than a school of public policy or public affairs, the Master of Public Administration in Public and Nonprofit Management and Policy program at NYU Wagner educates professionals committed to public service in all sectors.

NYU Wagner's Health Policy and Management program has been recognized as one of the best in the country. Located in a school of public service rather than in a medical or public health school, our program crosses traditional boundaries, linking management, finance, and policy, and provides students with the cutting-edge concepts and skills needed to shape the future of health policy and management.

NYU Wagner's Master of Urban Planning program prepares students for the full set of challenges of today's cities, balancing development, community needs and social justice, provision of critical public services, sustainability and security.

Through theoretical and methodological training, Wagner's doctoral students learn how to produce insights required for effective and equitable public and nonprofit programs and policies.? Our program is interdisciplinary, flexible, and provides a wide range of academic opportunities for students.

With a powerful professional network and a flexible curriculum, the Executive MPA program helps mid-career professionals prepare for the highest levels of public service leadership.

NYU Wagner offers a number of dual degrees in conjunction with other NYU schools. Programming and academic resources can include exclusive speaker events, tailored orientations and designated faculty and administrative advisors.

The Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service offers a set of courses and minors open only to undergraduates. All of the courses are taught by Wagner School faculty who are recognized experts in their fields and provide students with an opportunity to explore some of the most important public policy issues facing policy-makers and practitioners at the local and national level today.

Students arrive at NYU with the desire to serve the public. They leave with the skills and experience to bring about change. Combining coursework in management, finance and policy with cutting-edge research and work experience in urban communities, the NYU Wagner education will enable you to transform your personal commitment into public leadership.

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Date	Publication/Paper
2013	Rao, Nirupama S. 2013. *Do Tax Credits Stimulate R&D Spending? The Eect of the R&D Tax Credit in its First Decade.* (Working Paper). (Under Review). View working paper Abstract This paper examines the impact of the R&D tax credit between 1981-1991 using condential IRS data from corporate tax returns. The key advances on previous work are an instrumental variables strategy based on tax law changes that addresses the simultaneity between R&D spending and its user cost and the use of new condential data. Estimates imply that a ten percent reduction in the user cost of R&D leads the average firm to increase its research intensity--the ratio of R&D spending to sales--by 11 percent in the short-run. Long-run estimates imply that rms do face adjustment costs and further increase spending over the longer-run. Analysis of the components of qualied research shows that wages and supplies account for the bulk of the increase in research spending. Comparisons of the elasticity across firms of dierent sizes, industries, tax status, multi-national status and credit history are also made. Neither small nor young firms appear more responsive in the static analysis but the dynamic model reveals stronger short-run responses, suggesting that they may face lower adjustment costs or liquidity constraints in financing R&D. Long-run and retiming analyses show no evidence that firms allocate their qualied research spending over time to maximize their R&D tax credits. Elasticities of qualifiied and total research intensities from a smaller sample suggest firms respond to user cost changes largely by increasing their qualified spending, meaning that what R&D the federal credit deems qualified research is an important margin on which the credit affects firm behavior.
	Rao, Nirupama. 2013. *Taxes and the Extraction of Exhaustible Resources: Evidence from California Oil Production.* January 2013. (Under Review). Download publication Abstract Rapid oil price increases frequently bring calls for special oil industry taxes. This paper uses new well-level production data and price variation induced by federal oil taxes and price controls to estimate how taxes affect production. Theory suggests temporary taxes create strong incentives for retiming productioneven well shutting. Empirical estimates suggest little shut-in in response to taxes, but substantial production retiming with an estimated elasticity between 0.208 and 0.261. The estimates are used to calibrate a simple model of the efficiency cost of tax-induced distortions, implying that a 15% tax reduces social efficiency by between 3% and 25% of the revenue raised.
2011	Rao, Nirupama, James Poterba and Jeri Seidman 2011. *Deferred Tax Positions and Incentives for Corporate Behavior Around Corporate Tax Changes.* National Tax Journal 64, 1 (March 2011): 27-57. View Publication. Abstract A firm's deferred tax position can influence how it is affected by a transition from one tax regime to another. We compile disaggregated deferred tax position data for a sample of large U.S. firms between 1993 and 2004 to explore how these positions might affect firm behavior before and after a pre-announced change in the statutory corporate tax rate. Our results suggest that the heterogeneous deferred tax positions of large U.S. corporations create substantial variation in the short-run effect of tax rate changes on reported earnings. Recognizing these divergent incentives is important for understanding the political economy of corporate tax reform.
2009	Rao, Nirupama and Pablo Kurlat 2009. *Unemployment Insurance.* in Governing America, Facts on File, New York, 2009 William E. Cunion and Paul Quirk, eds. View Online

This paper examines the impact of the R&D tax credit between 1981-1991 using condential IRS data from corporate tax returns. The key advances on previous work are an instrumental variables strategy based on tax law changes that addresses the simultaneity between R&D spending and its user cost and the use of new condential data. Estimates imply that a ten percent reduction in the user cost of R&D leads the average firm to increase its research intensity--the ratio of R&D spending to sales--by 11 percent in the short-run. Long-run estimates imply that rms do face adjustment costs and further increase spending over the longer-run. Analysis of the components of qualied research shows that wages and supplies account for the bulk of the increase in research spending. Comparisons of the elasticity across firms of dierent sizes, industries, tax status, multi-national status and credit history are also made. Neither small nor young firms appear more responsive in the static analysis but the dynamic model reveals stronger short-run responses, suggesting that they may face lower adjustment costs or liquidity constraints in financing R&D. Long-run and retiming analyses show no evidence that firms allocate their qualied research spending over time to maximize their R&D tax credits. Elasticities of qualifiied and total research intensities from a smaller sample suggest firms respond to user cost changes largely by increasing their qualified spending, meaning that what R&D the federal credit deems qualified research is an important margin on which the credit affects firm behavior.

Rapid oil price increases frequently bring calls for special oil industry taxes. This paper uses new well-level production data and price variation induced by federal oil taxes and price controls to estimate how taxes affect production. Theory suggests temporary taxes create strong incentives for retiming productioneven well shutting. Empirical estimates suggest little shut-in in response to taxes, but substantial production retiming with an estimated elasticity between 0.208 and 0.261. The estimates are used to calibrate a simple model of the efficiency cost of tax-induced distortions, implying that a 15% tax reduces social efficiency by between 3% and 25% of the revenue raised.

A firm's deferred tax position can influence how it is affected by a transition from one tax regime to another. We compile disaggregated deferred tax position data for a sample of large U.S. firms between 1993 and 2004 to explore how these positions might affect firm behavior before and after a pre-announced change in the statutory corporate tax rate. Our results suggest that the heterogeneous deferred tax positions of large U.S. corporations create substantial variation in the short-run effect of tax rate changes on reported earnings. Recognizing these divergent incentives is important for understanding the political economy of corporate tax reform.

Nirupama Rao
Assistant Professor of Economics and Public Policy

Contact Details

Areas of Expertise

In the Press

Nirupama Rao

Nirupama Rao Assistant Professor of Economics and Public Policy

Contact Details

Areas of Expertise

In the Press

Nirupama Rao
Assistant Professor of Economics and Public Policy