The industrial Midwest went through wrenching economic restructuring during the 1970s and 1980s and yet rebounded to outperform the U.S. economy during much of the 1990s. Key to this resurgence was restructuring in core industries (including manufacturing) that increased the productivity and...

Tradable permit markets have become an increasingly popular tool to address environmental policy problems. This paper describes and evaluates the performance of the Regional Clean Air Incentives Market (RECLAIM) that started operating in Southern California at the beginning of 1994. In analysing...

State tax revenues have become far more sensitive to changing economic conditions since the turn of the century. The authors document this increasing volatility and offer suggestions for what state governments might do to better manage their tax revenues to avoid or minimize dramatic fiscal...

Foreclosure rates are defined as mortgages in the foreclosure process as a percentage of all mortgages. These rates vary fairly dramatically across states. While the average foreclosure rate in the 50 states and the District of Columbia in the second quarter of 2007 was 1.25 percent, these rates...

Food prices have been rising rapidly over the past two years. In August 2008, aggregate food prices were 6.1 percent above their level in August 2007. Prices in August 2007 were already 4.8 percent above the level in August 2006. Because food purchases represent a larger portion of the...

The Earned Income Tax Credit is unique among social programs in that benefits are not paid out evenly across the calendar year. We exploit this feature of the EITC to investigate how the credit influences the food expenditure patterns of eligible households. We find that eligible households...