Can America Govern Itself?: Deficits, Debt, And Delay, Ron Haskins

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

America has now been in the throes of a deficit and debt crisis for nearly a decade. Over the last three years, the federal government has tied itself in knots trying to reach a long-term solution. Any effective solution will involve tax increases and entitlement cuts. But both parties have been unwilling to openly bargain about either the tax increases or spending cuts they are willing to consider as part of a grand bargain. Why are both parties being so intransigent? What are the prospects for a grand bargain and what might it look like? What are the consequences if …

Higher Gasoline Taxes: Elitist Or Equitable?, Barry Bluestone, Stephanie Pollack

Stephanie Pollack

No abstract provided.

Higher Gasoline Taxes: Elitist Or Equitable?, Barry Bluestone, Stephanie Pollack

Barry Bluestone

No abstract provided.

Tiebout In The Country The Inevitable Politics Of Rural School Consolidation, Steven L. Willborn

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

This essay explains why school consolidation issues are especially difficult in rural America. Consolidation is most appropriate when adjacent districts have similar preferences for taxation and spending on schools. In that case, economies of scale can be reaped without interfering much with resident preferences on taxes and school quality. In urban areas residents signal these preferences by moving into (or out of) school districts that match their preferences, a process known as Tiebout sorting. As a result, school consolidation decisions can be based on good information about resident preferences. The basic claim of this essay is that Tiebout sorting works …

State Incentives For Innovation, Star Scientists, And Jobs: Evidence From Biotech, Enrico Moretti, Daniel J. Wilson

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We evaluate the effects of state-provided financial incentives for biotech companies, which are part of a growing trend of placed-based policies designed to spur innovation clusters. We estimate that the adoption of subsidies for biotech employers by a state raises the number of star biotech scientists in that state by about 15 percent over a three-year period. A 10 percent decline in the user cost of capital induced by an increase in R&D tax incentives raises the number of stars by 22 percent. Most of the gains are due to the relocation of star scientists to adopting states, with limited …

Taxing The Opposition: Cactus League Attendance And The Efficiency Of The 'Cubs Tax', Michael C. Davis, Craig Palsson, Joseph Price

Economics Faculty Research & Creative Works

In 2010, a plan to finance a new spring training stadium for the Cubs through a ticket surcharge on all games in the Cactus League was proposed. We find that the Cubs increase attendance when they are the away team by about 37%. Thus, the surcharge would be economically justified as long as the price elasticity of tickets is less than 0.32, which many prior studies find to be the case. This tax provides one of the few examples in which the cost of a subsidized stadium would be born primarily by the group that benefits the most from the …

Rusticus: Notes On Class And Culture In Rural New Hampshire, Donald Hall

New England Journal of Public Policy

Old New Hampshire Highway Number Four was incorporated by an act of the New Hampshire legislature in the autumn of 1800. It wound out of Portsmouth, a seaport that once rivaled Boston, drove west through Concord, north past Penacook, through Boscawen, Salisbury, Andover, and Wilmot on its way to Lebanon and the Connecticut River. These names string history like beads. The Penacook tribe assembled each year on the banks of the Merrimack at the site of the present town that bears their name. I grew up thinking Boscawen an unusual Indian name; it is Cornish, surname of an admiral victorious …

Effects Of Ad-Valorem Taxes On Location Decision Under Free Entry Cournot Oligopoly, Yeung-Nan Shieh

Faculty Publications

This paper examines the impact of the ad-valorem commodity tax as a policy device on the location decision of undifferentiated oligopolistic firms with free entry. It shows that: (1) When the distance between the plant location and the output market is held constant, the optimum location for the oligopolistic firm would be independent of the ad-valorem tax if the production function is homothetic, and (2) when the distance between the plant location and the output market is a decision variable, the optimum location for the oligopolistic firm will move closer to the output market if the demand function is linear …

Effects Of Ad-Valorem Taxes On Location Decision Under Free Entry Cournot Oligopoly, Yeung-Nan Shieh

Yeung-Nan Shieh

This paper examines the impact of the ad-valorem commodity tax as a policy device on the location decision of undifferentiated oligopolistic firms with free entry. It shows that: (1) When the distance between the plant location and the output market is held constant, the optimum location for the oligopolistic firm would be independent of the ad-valorem tax if the production function is homothetic, and (2) when the distance between the plant location and the output market is a decision variable, the optimum location for the oligopolistic firm will move closer to the output market if the demand function is linear …

Technical Bulletins: Sales Tax Revenue: How To Get Your Fair Share (2013), Al Major

MTAS Publications: Technical Bulletins

The best way to maximize your city's local sales tax is to review the state's record of business locations (situs report) and correct any errors.

The Impact Of Post-Recession State Revenue Reductions On Maine's Municipalities, Emily Shaw

Maine Policy Review

Maine municipalities have received substantially less revenue from the state over the past several years, due to a combination of financial pressures on state budgets and state administrative policy preferences. The result is that municipalities have been forced to restructure the provision and funding of local services through a combination of reducing spending in some categories, raising additional money from residents and other users of town services, or taking on additional municipal debt. However, on average, Maine’s municipalities have so far been unable to reduce their total spending. This discussion of municipal responses to reduced state revenue is based on …

The Distributional Effects Of Recent Changes To Maine’S Tax System, Joel Johnson

Maine Policy Review

Both classical economic theory and recent empirical research support the notion that taxes should be progressive: that the wealthiest citizens should pay a larger share of their income in taxes than the middle class, and the middle class should pay a larger share of their income in taxes than the poor. Like every other state in the U.S., Maine’s state and local tax system is not progressive, or even proportional with respect to income, but regressive. This article summarizes recent changes to income, sales, and property taxes that have made Maine’s state and local tax system more regressive.

Multiple Pollutants, Unovered Sectors, And Suboptimal Environmental Policies, Daniel Karney, Don Fullerton

Daniel H Karney

In our analytical general equilibrium model where two polluting inputs can be substitutes or complements in production, we study the effects of a tax on one pollutant in two cases: one where both pollutants face taxes and the second where the other pollutant is subject to a permit policy. In each case, we solve for closed-form solutions that highlight important parameters. We demonstrate two important ways that environmental taxes and permits are not equivalent. First, the change in the pollutant facing a tax increase depends on whether the other pollutant is subject to a tax or permit policy. Second, if …