Firm migration is seen as a barometer of business climate and economic health. State and local governments feel the pressure to retain and attract jobs, often by competing using economic development packages. To better understand local employment changes, and the prevalence of job migration, we...

The first edition of Urban’s new State Tax and Economic Review finds total state tax revenue from all sources showed strong growth in the final quarter of 2017 and the first quarter of 2018. The largest increases were in individual income tax revenues. State government tax revenue grew mostly in...

Administrative tax data contain a wealth of information that is potentially valuable for research and analysis. However, the legal and ethical imperative to protect taxpayer privacy has restricted their access to a small number of government analysts and select researchers. We propose to develop...

Recent tax cuts and the relaxation of spending caps on much of discretionary spending have added massively to the federal debt. Neither political party is showing much interest in controlling deficits and unless there are large changes in fiscal policies we are firmly on a road to a fiscal...

In this study, we explore how strict balanced budget requirements (BBRs) and tax or expenditure limits (TELs) influence states’ decisions to either cut spending or raise revenues in response to surprise deficits and whether this relationship changed following the onset of the Great Recession. We...

American places are pulling apart from one another—economically, socially, and politically. Declining regional income convergence, increasing geographic concentration of joblessness, and an increasing awareness of the social costs of long-term joblessness and economic isolation have led many...

Cities are where people come together to work, live, and thrive. Cities also face a host of fiscal challenges, many of which were laid bare in the Great Recession. Given these challenges, stakeholders of many kinds have sought more and better indicators of city fiscal health. This paper provides...

Conventional estimates that do not fully account for this rebalancing overstate the increase in revenues associated with eliminating the MID and will also overstate the progressivity of eliminating the MID, because households with higher levels of non-residential assets might respond by selling...

This paper addresses issues relating to the creation of border carbon adjustments (BCAs) as part of a carbon tax. A carbon tax that is imposed only in the U.S. could put American firms at a competitive disadvantage. A BCA could level the playing field so that U.S. and foreign-firms face the same...