• Canada (last updated 2012). Non-residents rendering services in Canada says: “If you render services in Canada (other than in the course of regular and continuous employment): the payer must withhold 15% of the gross amount of the payment; and you may have to file a Canadian income tax return [e.g., using tax preparation software] to report the gross income and net income (gross income minus expenses). This generally applies to lecturers, consultants, entertainers, artists and athletes.” I’m going to assume that the payer is responsible for dealing with this.
• Alabama (last updated 2011). “Nonresidents must file a return if Alabama income exceeds the allowable prorated personal exemption.” Fill out Form 40NR with calculations (easy!) and submit along with payment voucher Form 40-V. Make sure to use the “print” button on the forms to generate a bar code. PS. It doesn’t look like I can e-file.
• Arizona (last updated 2011). Scroll down to Nonresident Personal Income Tax Package – This easy to use package features “Fill it in…It does the math”. Tax of 2.59% of earnings up to $10,000. But in 2010 they refunded the money I sent them for CY2009; apparently there’s a personal deduction of $4,677, so there’s no tax if you’ve earned less than that amount in Arizona.
• California (last updated 2011). “Nonresidents must file a return if they have any California source income and their income from all sources is more than the filing requirement amounts for residents.” Fill out online forms 540NR (if you make more than $100k a year) and Schedule CA 540NR; the tax calculator will come in handy. “Important: Attach a copy of your complete federal return.” PS. It looks like only CA residents can e-file.
• Colorado (last updated 2011). “A part-year resident or nonresident of Colorado will complete the Colorado individual income tax return, Form 104, and the 104PN part-year resident/nonresident tax calculation schedule.” I’m filing a paper return for CY2011, but after one year of paper filing I should be able to use NetFile to file for free (plus $1 to pay via checking account).
• Illinois (last updated 2011). Fill out Illinois non-residents Schedule NR and then fill out long form Form IL-1040. Tax of 3%. But in 2010 they refunded the money I sent them for 2009.
• Indiana (last updated 2011). Fill out form IT-40PNR. Tax of 3.4% (for CY2009).
• Kansas (last updated 2011). Non-residents can register, e-file, and pay by electronic check. If you’re going to require non-residents to pay state taxes, this is the way to do it :) PS. As of April 2011 I still love Kansas; 10 minutes and I was filed and paid and done!
• Kentucky (last updated 2011). Bad news is that you have to print and fill out longhand 740-NP Packet – 2009 Kentucky Part-Year and Nonresident Tax Booklet, Forms and Instructions. Good news is that no taxes are due if your KY income is less than $2190! (At least that’s what it was for tax year 2009; it’s item #10, “Non-itemizers”, on the first page of the tax return. For CY2010 it was $2210.)
• Massachusetts (last updated 2011). “A nonresident with Massachusetts gross income must file a return of such income when it exceeds the lesser of two thousand dollars or the total of his personal exemptions multiplied by the ratio of his Massachusetts income to his total income.” Forms are here; you need Form 1-NR/PY and Form PV. E-filing is not available for nonresidents, but otherwise it’s pretty straight-forward.
• Michigan (last updated 2011). “You must file a Michigan income tax return (MI-1040 and Schedule NR for nonresidents and part-year residents) and pay Michigan income tax on salary wages and other employee compensation for work performed in Michigan.” Tax forms are here; it looks like e-file is available for a fee to a third party.
• Minnesota (last updated 2011). You need to file only if your MN income is more than $9,350 (in 2010).
• Missouri (last updated 2011). Fill out the long form MO-1040 Fill/Calc; part of that form is the MO-NRI form for non-residents. See also city of St Louis tax of 1%.
• New Jersey (last updated 2011). Yes I need to file. Fill out NJ1040-NR and the NR Payment Voucher.
• New York (last updated 2011). There’s a nifty guide to determine if you have to file. Here’s the key question: “Is your New York adjusted gross income federal amount column (Form IT-203, Nonresident and Part-Year Resident Income Tax Return, line 31) more than $7,500?” If so (and I’m afraid it is, because this is federal income, not NY income) then it looks like you have to file. The good news is that it’s a PDF form (Form IT-203) that can be filled in; the link has instructions, too. You can check a box on the return to have the tax deducted from your bank account.
• Ohio (last updated 2011). Fill out 2009 IT-1040 – Individual Income Tax Return. PS. Good news: you can e-file! Bad news: “If you are filing an Ohio income tax return for the first time or if you are unable to register, you will be required to fax your Social Security card or IRS ITIN assignment letter and at least one additional piece of identification which must include your date of birth. Acceptable identification includes a valid driver’s license, state issued identification card, U.S. passport or military ID (copy of both front and back sides required). To initiate the registration process, fax your request and necessary information to our online registration group at 1-206-600-6113.” PS. The City of Bowling Green also charges a city income tax.
• Pennsylvania (last updated 2011). Fill out 2009_pa-40.pdf, 2009 Pennsylvania Income Tax Return (PA-40). PS. Good news: you may be able to e-file! Bad news: You can’t in 2010, and maybe not ever. Even worse news: I can’t understand how to apportion my PA income, so I’m not going to file with PA.
• South Dakota (last updated 2011). South Dakota does not have a personal income tax.
• Tennessee (last updated 2011). “The individual income tax is imposed only on individuals and other entities receiving interest from bonds and notes and dividends from stock.”
• Virginia (last updated 2011). I need to file form 763; the tax table is here. “Attach a complete copy of your federal tax return.”
• Vermont (last updated 2011). Yes I have to pay tax; this guide says to fill out forms IN-113 and IN-111, available here. On that same page is the income tax return booklet, which lists address on p3 and tax rates/schedules on the back pages.
• Washington (last updated 2012). Washington State has no income tax, but I do have to pay B&O (business) tax on some business activities; see this section on Performing business services both inside and outside of Washington for more on apportionment. The City of Seattle also has an apportionment worksheet; scroll down to “Is there a worksheet to assist in computing my taxable service income?”
• Wisconsin (last updated 2011). “If you are a nonresident or part-year resident of Wisconsin and your gross income (or the combined gross income of you and your spouse) is $2,000 or more for 2010, you must file a Wisconsin return. Gross income means all income (before deducting expenses) reportable to Wisconsin.” It looks like I need to file form 1NPR and it doesn’t look like I might be able to e-file even though this page makes it sound otherwise. “Do not staple. Paper clip a copy of your federal income tax return to this return.”

By 2014, the economy will have made progress on the long, slow recovery from the financial crisis. The unemployment rate will still be high but will be less than 6.5% and will have fallen by about 1 percentage point per year. As a result the news media will be looking for other stories, and—after an extended period without much media attention—climate change will be back with a vengeance thanks to the first volume of the new IPCC report (AR5), due in September 2013 (with additional volumes in March, April, and October 2014). In other climate science developments, ENSO conditions are likely to change from the La Nina patterns that lowered global temperatures in 2010 and 2011; wild cards include the mountain pine beetle outbreak in Washington State (story, video), the Texas drought, and other climate and weather phenomena. Meanwhile, global emissions will continue to increase, thanks mostly to continued rapid growth in developing countries. On the political front, international negotiations will continue at a snail’s pace. The national political scene will remain polarized, with no progress on the climate front regardless of the winner of the 2012 Presidential election. The 2012 governor’s election in Washington State (Democrat Jay Inslee versus Republican Rob McKenna) could have more bearing, and in Oregon there will be a governor’s race in 2014. And the world-leading British Columbia carbon tax will be celebrating the 6th year since its creation and the 2nd year since reaching its maximum tax rate of $30/tonne CO2 (about $0.30/gallon gasoline, $0.03/kWh of coal-fired power). All together this makes for a strong case for a bipartisan effort to raise the profile of the BC carbon tax and push for similar policies in Pacific Northwest.

Marwell and Ames, 1981. “Economists free ride, does anyone else?” Journal of Public Economics 15: 295-310. They conducted a public-goods game by giving individuals 250 “tokens” and asking them how many tokens they wanted to invest on an “individual exchange” versus a “group exchange”; payoffs were set up to create a tragedy-of-the-commons situation, i.e., each individual can maximize their own payoff by free-riding, but if everybody invests in the group exchange then everyone is better off than if everybody invests in the individual exchange. They found that contributions to the group exchange from economics graduate students were about half those from others (20% versus 41%). They also asked questions about “fairness” and noted: “There was surprising unanimity of thought [among everyone except the econ grad students] regarding what was considered fair… [In contrast, m]ore than one-third of the economists either refused to answer the question regarding what is fair, or gave very complex, uncodable responses. It seems that the meaning of ‘fairness’ in this context was somewhat alien for this group. Those who did respond were much more likely to say that little or no contribution [to the group exchange] was ‘fair’. In addition, the economics graduate students were about half as likely as other subjects to indicate that they were ‘concerned with fairness’ in making their investment decision.”

Carter and Irons, 1991. “Are economists different, and if so, why?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 5:171-177. Their ultimatum game experiment found that economics students made lower offers and had lower minimum acceptable offers, and they argue that “economists are born, not made”: “[W]e use a simple ultimatum bargaining experiment to test whether economics students behave more in accordance with predictions of the rational/self-interest model of economics. Finding that a behavioral difference does exist, we then conduct tests to discriminate between the selection and learning hypotheses… To summarize, we find that economists are different, but they are already different when they begin their study of economics.”

R. Frank et al., 1993. “Does studying economics inhibit cooperation?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 7:159-171: “A variety of evidence suggests a large difference in the extent to which economists and noneconomists behave self-interestedly. We believe our survey of charitable giving and our prisoner’s dilemma results lend additional support to the hypothesis that economists are more likely than others to free-ride… We also found evidence consistent with the view that differences in cooperativeness are caused in part by training in economics.”

B. Frank and Schulze, 2000. “Does economics make citizens corrupt?” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 43:101-113. Their experiment involved giving students an opportunity to receive a bribe (up to a maximum of about $72) for recommending a plumber. Of the 190 students sampled, one name was randomly chosen to actually receive whatever bribe they had designated: “In this paper, we report on an experiment on corruption which investigates various determinants of corruptibility. We found that economics students are significantly more corrupt than others, which is due to self-selection rather than indoctrination.”

Frey and Meier, 2003. “Are political economists selfish and indoctrinated? Evidence from a natural experiment”, Economic Inquiry 41:448-462. This study is very similar to my work with Elaina Rose in that it looks at donations by students, in this case at the University of Zurich, where students are asked if they want to donate small sums to “a fund that offers cheap loans to needy students” and/or “a second fund supporting foreigners who study at the University of Zurich.” They find that “[p]olitical economists (to use the classical term) are not more selfish than the average student, but students of business economics are” and that “[the] higher level of selfishness of business students is due to self-selection, not indoctrination.”

Rubinstein 2006. “A sceptic’s comment on the study of economics”, The Economic Journal 116: C1-C9: “A survey was carried out among two groups of undergraduate economics students and four groups of students in mathematics, law, philosophy and business administration. The main survey question involved a conflict between profit maximisation and the welfare of the workers who would be fired to achieve it. Significant differences were found between the choices of the groups.”

Wang et al., forthcoming. “Economics Education and Greed”, Academy of Management Learning & Education: “The recent financial crisis, along with repeated corporate scandals, raise serious questions about whether a business school education contributes to what some have described as a culture of greed. The dominance of economic-related courses in MBA curricula led us to assess the effects of economics education on greed in three studies using multiple methods. Study 1 found that economics majors and students who had taken multiple economics courses kept more money in a money allocation task (the Dictator Game). Study 2 found that economics education was associated with more positive attitudes towards greed and towards one’s own greedy behavior. Study 3 found that a short statement on the societal benefits of self-interest led to more positive ratings of greed’s moral acceptability, even for non-economics students. These effects suggest that economics education may have serious, albeit unintended consequences on our students’ attitudes towards greed.”

Bauman and Rose, 2011. “Selection or indoctrination: Why do economics students donate less than the rest?” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 79: 318-327: “A substantial body of research suggests that economists are less generous than other professionals and that economics students are less generous than other students. Following Frey and Meier (2003), we address this question using administrative data on donations to social programs by students at the University of Washington. Our data set allows us to track student donations and microeconomics training over time in order to distinguish selection effects from indoctrination effects. We find that there is a selection effect for economics majors, who are less likely to donate than other students, and that there is an indoctrination effect for non-majors but not for majors.”

Yoram’s conclusions

My work with Elaina Rose has been dismissed (e.g., by Steve Landsburg) on the grounds that students who choose not to contribute to a group dedicated to reducing tuition fees for students could be concerned about the welfare of taxpayers rather than just free-riding.

My first conclusion is that I find this alternative explanation to be possible, and so I agree that Elaina Rose and I have not proved that economists students are more selfish than others. But I hasten to add that we never claimed to have proved this. The idea that we proved something came (in my opinion) from Landsburg’s odd perspective and from David Henderson’s equally odd discussion of how Rose and I were guilty of “affirming the consequent”.

My second conclusion is that I find this alternative explanation to be implausible, especially in light of the preceding literature, and therefore I believe that our work supports the conclusion that economists are more selfish than others. That is all that we claim in our paper, and it is all that I claim in my NYT op-ed. In the words of R. Frank et al. (1993), “As always, questions can be raised about experimental design.” But you shouldn’t miss the forest for the trees.

My 2nd comment

Wow, I’m stunned by your response, David. In the Update at the bottom of your original post, you write this: “Yoram seems to imply that I had written that he had written that he had proven something. I didn’t. I did, as he points out, say that he made a strong claim. Yoram, in his response, equates the term “claim” to “conclusion.” I guess that’s fair. Yoram says he didn’t reach a strong conclusion. I think he did. I leave readers to judge for themselves.”

In the spirit of your original post, I’ll sum up:
Henderson wrote an article making a strong claim.
Bauman showed that the claim did not follow from the evidence.
Henderson “leave[s] readers to judge for themselves.”

David, if this is really how you see things then you’re not fit to mediate a bridge game with my grandmother. (Yoram: “Grammy, I think we should play Blackwood.” Grammy: “Yoram, sometimes Blackwood doesn’t work.” Henderson: “Bauman makes a strong claim, and Grammy shows the claim doesn’t follow from the evidence.” Yoram: “Hold on, that’s not what I claimed.” Henderson: “I leave readers to judge for themselves.”)

I’m going to petition the University of Winnipeg to take away your mathematics degree. As a fellow math major I’m appalled.

My 3rd comment

Wow, I’m stunned by your response, David. In the Update at the bottom of your original post, you write this: “Yoram seems to imply that I had written that he had written that he had proven something. I didn’t. I did, as he points out, say that he made a strong claim. Yoram, in his response, equates the term “claim” to “conclusion.” I guess that’s fair. Yoram says he didn’t reach a strong conclusion. I think he did. I leave readers to judge for themselves.”

In the spirit of your original post, I’ll sum up:
Henderson wrote an article making a strong claim.
Bauman showed that the claim did not follow from the evidence.
Henderson “leave[s] readers to judge for themselves.”

PS. I [Yoram] have deleted the rest of what used to be in this post in the hopes that it will pass muster with the webmaster the 2nd time around. I had no idea that the comment policy on this website (“no personal or ad hominem remarks”) was so strict, so I apologize for violating that policy. However, I would like to emphasize that I made assumptions about the comments policy based on previous comments on this blog. See for example the following excerpts from comments that were NOT deleted from this post, and judge for yourself (based on the comments below and on this post of my original comment) whether Econlib is being fair to me:

bmcburney: “Nobody is really convinced by such studies but they are good for a few laughs in the faculty lounge and at left-wing cocktail parties. Bauman’s study of greedy encon majors will probably not win him a Nobel but will provide a signal to his colleagues of his political reliability and make everybody who already believes in the moral inferiority of Business and Econ majors feel better about themseleves.”

Chris Koresko: “One reason (I suspect) that Bauman interpreted his results as he did was that it’s common among left-leaners to equate support for government-mandated redistribution with personal generosity.” [A "personal remark" that David Henderson applauds with a "well done"!]

ajb: “If Bauman were to be honest…” [suggesting that I am not honest]

How is it possible that any of these comments is allowed to remain while my original comment was deleted? My original comment was arguably no more offense and was much much funnier!!!

PS. Of course, unless and until somebody puts a comment here I’m left with the tentative conclusion that maybe this particular public good is non-rival because nobody demands it!!

Update Dec 17 5pm: Oh good, some comments :) And here are some older comments on the working paper when I posted it back in 2009.

Update Dec 18 8am: Based on comments so far (plus emails I received and will post anonymously below) I think I have four observations:

1) Regarding our “story”: The job of an academic paper like this is to tell a “story” about some data. We’re not claiming that it’s The Only Possible Truth, just that it’s one plausible story. And ideally our story should be viewed in the context of previous stories, i.e., previous research in this area. (That’s why academic papers often begin with a literature review.) The previous literature in our area includes all sorts of analysis, from public goods experiments-by-mail (Marwell and Ames 1981; similar experiments are now done by email, see e.g., Rubinstein 2006) to a look at “cheating” on dues-payments to professional associations (Laband and Beil 1999) to a “letter drop experiment” in which fully-addressed envelopes containing cash were left in college classrooms to see whether the ones left in economics classes were more or less likely to reach their intended destination (Yezer et al. 1996). Most of these previous studies (but not all of them) lend weight to our one-sentence lit review in the NYT: “Academic research suggests that there’s a good deal of truth to the stereotype.”

2) Regarding our statistical work: Obviously we cannot explain it all in 700-word NY Times article, so I encourage you to read the working paper version (linked above). It’s worth noting that the paper passed peer-review, meaning that the statistical work should not be dismissed off-hand. My co-author Elaina Rose and I were very careful in trying to focus solely on the effects of economics classes on giving behavior. Of course, our article is only one story about one data set, but I think it’s a reasonable story with a solid analysis of an interesting data set. Again, we had a one-sentence summary in the NYT: “Although students remained anonymous, we could look at all of the 8,743 members of our data set and determine what their majors were, when they took economics classes (if at all) and whether or not they donated to ATN or WashPIRG during each quarter of our study period.” (Incidentally we also knew age, race, and gender, so our analysis took those into account too.)

3) Regarding the nature of public goods: Some comments express doubts about whether WashPIRG and ATN count as public goods. This is definitely fair for WashPIRG but less so for ATN. And, again, it’s worth looking at our research in the context of the previous literature. Frey and Meier (2004) look at a nearly identical situation at the University of Zurich, where students are asked if they want to contribute to scholarship funds for needy students and for foreign students; almost 60% of students donate (!) and again economists donate less than the rest. Perhaps you want to argue that these scholarship funds are also not public goods, or perhaps you want to argue that “all taxation is theft” and therefore that there is a fundamental flaw in all public goods experiments. I stand by the claim in the NYT article that all this is “mostly beside the point. Regardless of the groups’ actual social value, a purely self-interested individual would choose to free-ride rather than contribute.”

4) Regarding politics &etc: Politics comes to the fore surprisingly quickly in many comments, and arguably I started it by closing the NYT piece with the claim that “Our research suggests that economics education could do a better job of providing balance.” Perhaps an economist with an even greater respect for free markets than me would have told a different story (“Look at how economics education is getting students to stop wasting their money on worthless causes!”) but I would like to at least note that if our statistical analysis had come out differently—if we had found that economists give more than others and that taking economics classes increased giving—then we would have still been excited to publish our work. In other words, we didn’t go into this trying to tell a political story; we went into this trying to see what we could learn from a cool data set, and that was the main driver of the whole effort.