In this broad and illuminating work, experts on public finance discuss innovations in state and local tax policy that have been implemented or considered over the course of the last three decades. The authors provide original work that analyzes whether state and local governments have...

Most states have exhausted their unemployment insurance (UI) trust fund and borrowed from the federal government at least once during the past 35 years. Under such circumstances, states are required by law to raise UI taxes to replenish their trust funds and to pay off their debts to the federal...

Comparisons among state unemployment insurance (UI) systems can be misleading. Frequently quoted indicators of benefit generosity, tax cost, and adherence to the experience-rating principle are influenced by the relative economic conditions of states. Such comparisons thereby obscure underlying...

From an economist's perspective, the fiscal and administrative goals of the so-called “devolution revolution” include less federal intergovernmental aid, especially if fiscally equalizing; the substitution of block grants for matching grants; greater administrative flexibility for the...

During its lifetime, the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations periodically published estimates of each state's relative fiscal capacity. This research note provides new estimates updated to fiscal year 1994, the latest year for which all requisite underlying data are...