Search Results
Journal Article
Are state and local revenue systems becoming obsolete?
As recently as a year ago, state governments were awash in revenue, but reports from state revenue officials suggest that growth in tax receipts has slowed considerably in recent quarters. The flow of tax revenues into state coffers has decelerated primarily because the economy has suffered a severe shock (it was weakening even before September 11) and delayed tax cuts enacted in earlier, more prosperous times have taken full effect. However, many tax analysts believe that long-term economic, technological, and political trends are also partially responsible and will continue to constrain ...
Journal Article
Massachusetts' tax competitiveness
One of the most important issues facing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts today is maintaining a hospitable climate for business. If Massachusetts' taxes are deterring firms from locating and expanding within its territory, then the Commonwealth should consider ways of making its tax system less repellent. On the other hand, if its tax system is not such a deterrent, the Commonwealth should devote more attention to issues of greater concern to its employers, such as high unemployment insurance taxes, workers' compensation premiums, health care costs, and energy prices. ; This article presents ...
Working Paper
Measuring fiscal disparities across the U. S. states: a representative revenue system/representative expenditure system approach, fiscal year 2002
States and their local governments vary both in their needs to provide basic public services and in their abilities to raise revenues to pay for those services. A joint study by the Tax Policy Center and the New England Policy Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston uses the Representative Revenue System (RRS) and the Representative Expenditure System (RES) frameworks to quantify these disparities across states by comparing each state?s revenue capacity, revenue effort, and necessary expenditures to the average capacity, effort, and need in states across the country for fiscal year 2002. ...
Working Paper
The subsidy from state and local tax deductibility: trends, methodological issues, and its value after federal tax reform
Even though the momentum of the "devolution" movement has slowed, federal intergovernmental grants will probably be cut substantially during the next five to ten years. Federal tax reform could further erode federal assistance by eliminating the deduction for state and local personal income and property taxes. This deduction subsidizes the net cost to taxpayers of financing an additional dollar of state and local spending. In the language of economics, deductibility reduces the marginal "tax price" of state and local public goods. This paper clarifies methodological issues in the ...
Journal Article
Taking charge: should New England increase its reliance on user charges?
New England relies less on user charges for its state and local revenues than any other region of the country. As a result, some policymakers maintain that increases in user charges would correct an "imbalance" in the regions revenue mix. However, the national mix of state and local revenues is not necessarily the best mix for the states of New England. The degree to which a state should rely on u. ser charges depends on the priorities of its policymakers among competing principles of taxation, the conditions under which each principle favors user charges over taxes, and the extent to which ...
Journal Article
New ways of evaluating state unemployment insurance
Comparisons among state unemployment insurance systems can be misleading. Frequently quoted indicators of the generosity of their benefits, competitiveness, and adherence to the experience-rating principal are influenced by states' relative economic conditions, thereby obscuring underlying structural differences. Moreover, because the indicators are statewide averages, they obscure important intrastate differences in tax and benefit treatment across types of firms and workers. This article offers alternative indicators based on a simulation approach designed to alleviate these problems. The ...
Journal Article
Devolution: the new federalism, an overview
In recent years, a growing number of scholars and policymakers have concluded that the federal government has become too large and powerful, intruding into affairs better handled by states and municipalities. Based on this premise, they have argued for a reduction in federal aid, the conversion of matching grants to block grants, greater flexibility for states in implementing federally funded programs, and curtailment of federal mandates. Their program is popularly referred to as devolution, the devolving of federal responsibilities to lower levels of government. The controversy that ...
Journal Article
Differences across First District banks in operational efficiency
Economists devoted little attention to differences across banks in operational efficiency until about 15 years ago, when banks began to fail with increasing frequency. Some economists attributed the rising failure rate in part to intensified competitive pressures generated by deregulation and technological innovation. If this hypothesis is correct, and a significant number of banks are still inefficiently managed, then further deregulation and technological change could "shake up and shake out" the banking industry. Using data from 1985 through 1993, this study evaluates the extent to which ...
Journal Article
Effects of state and local public policies on economic development: an overview
The use of state and local public policy as an instrument of economic development is more controversial than ever. Profound technological and political changes have enhanced the geographic mobility of capital and extended firms' geographic range, intensifying competition among states and localities. At the same time, demand for state and local public services continues to rise, while impending reductions in federal aid compound the states' fiscal dilemma.> Caught between conflicting long-run fiscal pressures, state and local policymakers have sought advice on which policies are most ...
Journal Article
How dependent are New England's mid-sized firms on the region's largest bank holding companies?
The degree to which mid-sized firms--the "middle market"- depend on large regional banks for short-term credit is an issue particularly relevant to New England. If this dependence is heavy, then the recent consolidation among the regions large bank holding companies could be forcing its mid-sized firms to accept short-term credit on uncompetitive terms. The dependence of New Englands middle market on the regions banking institutions as a whole, both large and small, is also of concern. The greater this dependence, the more vulnerable are the regions mid-sized firms to sharp contractions in ...