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Public Administration
Master of Public Administration
Prepare to lead positive change through a rigorous yet efficient array of skills-building courses.
- On campus, in Syracuse, N.Y.
- 40 credits plus optional internships
- Complete full-time in 12 to 18 months
Executive Master of Public Administration—On Campus or Online
Fill gaps in your knowledge with a program tailored to your career goals—five to seven years of experience required. An online option for working professionals provides added flexibility.
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- 30 credits
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International Relations
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Satisfy your curiosity about the world, and develop skills and knowledge to change it for the better.
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Master of Arts in Public Diplomacy and Global Communications
Prepare to drive change in a range of international contexts through effective public and interpersonal communications. One powerful degree, two schools: the Maxwell School and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
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Executive Master's in International Relations
Improve your leadership and management skills and global affairs knowledge—seven years of experience required.
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PhD in Public Administration
Educate the next generation of public service leaders and conduct research that moves the field of public administration and policy analysis forward.
- On campus, in Syracuse, N.Y.
- 72 credits (36 credits beyond the M.A.)
- Full-time residential program, typically completed in 4.5 years
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Hou paper on China’s property tax plan earns prestigious Pu Shan award
February 20, 2019
The Maxwell School’s Yilin Hou, professor of public administration and international affairs and senior research associate at the Center for Policy Research, has won a prestigious economic policy research award from the Pu Shan Foundation of China. The paper, "Real Property Tax: Ability to Pay, Distribution of Tax Burden, and Redistribution Effects," is co-authored with Hou’s former doctoral student Ping Zhang, associate professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, China.
The eponymous bi-annual award was established in memory of a very influential economist in China, Dr. Shan Pu, who was educated in the US (BA from Michigan, 1943; PhD from Harvard, 1949). Every two years, the Pu Shan Foundation selects publications from all over the world in English and Chinese academic journals and other outlets on research related to the Chinese economy by Chinese scholars. The award selection committee is composed of the most accomplished economists, who hold key academic positions in the top research institutions in China.
An awards ceremony will be held in Shanghai in November 2019; Professor Hou will attend and make a speech on China’s public finance system and adopting the real property tax.
In this paper, Hou and his co-author construct an ability-to-pay (ATP) index and then examine the ATP of local property taxes in China. In tax administration, no tax can be levied without a practicable measure of ATP. Using survey data from the China Family Panel Studies, they compare the ATP of different household groups by their housing type, with/without housing loans, social-economic status, and other indicators. Their analyses show huge variation among different families in their ability-to-pay the property tax and indicate that some relief policies may be necessary to help the disadvantaged groups. Their findings provide direct support for Hou’s design of the real property tax for China, which was published in China as a book.
The paper was published in Economic Research (2016, issue 12), the highest-ranking economics journal in the Chinese language. Hou chose to publish this paper in a Chinese journal in order to influence China's tax reform and economic policy. Winning this award through three stages of very competitive selection is strong recognition of his research achievement and its impact in China.
Hou’s field of expertise is public finance. His research interests are fiscal policy, public budgeting, and intergovernmental fiscal relations as related to the core of development and governance. Much of his research focuses on the smooth operation of government finance across the boom-bust cycles of the economy. He is currently the principal investigator on the ’CUSE-grant funded study “Improving Local Property Tax Administration in New York State,” with Co-Principal Investigators John Yinger, Michael Wasylenko, and Minch Lewis. 02/20/19
