Search Results
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 ...
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
Massachusetts in the 1990s: the role of state government
Why another study of Massachusetts state government? In the past year, two Commissions established by the Governor have submitted reports, nonprofit citizen groups have come forth with lists of suggested reforms, and the legislature has had its own proposals. The goal of the study described here is quite different. Rather than offering solutions to the immediate budget problems, this study examines the major expenditures of state government and the forces that caused them to grow so rapidly in Massachusetts during the 1980s. ; For the most part, the Commonwealth has been spending revenues on ...
Journal Article
Comments on 2000 benchmark revisions to regional employment data
Journal Article
The neutrality of Massachusetts' taxation of financial institutions
The provision of financial services has changed dramatically over the past two decades. Technological innovation and deregulation have extended providers' geographic range and broadened the array of products they are capable of delivering. These changes have intensified competition among financial service firms. In recent years Massachusetts, like other states, has passed legislation designed to narrow disparities among the tax burdens of these institutions. At the same time, the Commonwealth has passed tax cuts designed to enhance the competitiveness of Massachusetts-based financial ...
Journal Article
Art's economic power in New England
Journal Article
Can local governments give citizens what they want? Referendum outcomes in Massachusetts
Economists and political scientists have long debated the nature of the process that determines government taxation and service levels in a democracy. During the 1980s, the role of referenda in determining city and town property taxes, and hence local spending, increased dramatically in Massachusetts. This article uses recent Massachusetts experience to examine the degree to which citizens "get what they want" from the local public sector and what it is they seem to want. ; The passage of Proposition 21/2 in November 1980 signalled both a shift in statewide voter sentiment against local ...
Report
The supply of permanent supportive housing in Massachusetts: comparing availability to the chronic homeless population
Permanent supportive housing (PSH) has become an important resource for Massachusetts service providers working to address chronic homelessness in the state. Nationally, and in the Commonwealth, the number of PSH beds available for homeless individuals and families now exceeds the amount of emergency shelter beds and other, non-permanent, housing options. While PSH is acknowledged as an important tool, there has been little research into the inventory level needed to effectively house the state?s current chronic homeless population, and what, if any, local shortages exist. This report uses ...
Working Paper
Restraining the Leviathan: property tax limitations in Massachusetts
We examine the effects of Proposition 2-1/2--a property tax limitation law approved by Massachusetts voters in 1980--and assess voter satisfaction with these effects. We find that the proposition had a smaller effect on local revenues and spending than expected, as a result of both amendments to the law and a strong economy. Voters in 1980 believed there was significant waste in local government, partly because of an inability to monitor local officials. Proposition 2-1/2 curbed these agency losses, but direct local override votes and municipal expenditure patterns imply that the proposition ...