Jingran Sun, a doctoral candidate in public administration, has earned a coveted C. Lowell Harriss Dissertation Fellowship from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. The fellowship assists Ph.D. students whose research "complements the institute's interests in land and tax policy."

Sun will use the funds to research property tax exemptions, an area that tends to be under-investigated.

He says some of the funding will support travel to conferences where he will present his research. The remainder will be used to complete his dissertation on the effects of property tax exemptions on municipal budgets. He is specifically examining revenue volatility, dependence on property taxes and expenditure choices.