Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The economic recession of 2001 and ensuing fiscal difficulties at all levels of government brought renewed attention to the health of the public finance system. We watched as the economy and federal, state, and local governments went from a period of unprecedented growth and surplus in the late 1990s to sustained decline and deficit from 2001 to 2005.

Beyond their inherent importance, recent cyclical economic and fiscal struggles are a wake-up call for public officials to pay attention to a much broader set of structural problems. The evolving nature of the economy from one based on manufacturing and property-based wealth to one based on services and knowledge-based wealth creates unprecedented challenges for fiscal structures. Significant changes in demographic, political, and intergovernmental factors are creating opportunities and threats for the fiscal arrangements required to support evolving government roles. Changing government roles have important implications for the future of the system of public finance.

How have America’s cities, and in particular its biggest cities—the lynchpins of the nation’s metropolitan and regional economies—fared during recent periods of economic boom and bust and amid ongoing structural changes? The research presented in this paper is part of an ongoing project that has four purposes: (1) to analyze the effects of cyclical changes on city finances; (2) to outline and call attention to structural challenges to city finances; (3) to examine changes in the finances of America’s biggest cities over time; and (4) to analyze the effects of the recent economic downturn for America’s biggest cities. This paper summarizes our results, to date, on the first three items. In terms of our analysis of the fiscal conditions of America’s largest cities, we emphasize the underlying revenue and economic structures of America’s 40 largest cities. Our hypothesis is that the way that these cities tax affects the fiscal and economic health of their communities. Revenue structures matter, affecting the rise and fall of revenues, investments, and the abilities of governments to meet the needs of their residents.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The structure of Argentina's fiscal institutions suggests voters will not hold governors accountable for poor fiscal behavior. We test this hypothesis via analysis of the effect of a governing party's fiscal behavior on its electoral performance.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Throughout the twentieth century taxation has played a pivotal role in the formation of the modern American administrative and regulatory social-welfare state. Indeed, tax laws, and the revenues that they generated, underwrote the emergence of a new liberal vision of governance in the early decades of the twentieth century. During the height of the Progressive Era, state governments, in particular, used their taxing powers to transform the social, political, and economic relations between state and society. This paper explores how different state governments, given their existing institutional and social arrangements, implemented tax reform in a variety of ways. More specifically, this paper analyzes how political activists and government actors in California, Wisconsin, and New York responded to the calls for tax reform in shaping the trajectory of legal change in their state.

Using Wisconsin as an anchor, this paper shows not only how state-level reform presaged national changes, but how different state governments, given their existing institutional and social arrangements, implemented reformist ideas in a variety of ways. By exploring how diverse states like California, New York, and Wisconsin responded to the popular calls for tax reform, this paper develops a rough typology of the different tax reform strategies undertaken at the state level.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In recent years, governments have found themselves trapped for cash in an environment of economic uncertainty. Yet under these conditions, they are required either by statue or constitutional provisions to balance their budget by the end of the fiscal year. To deal with this uncertainty, local governments have become innovative. They are maintaining unreserved fund balances as a cushion to deal with contingencies, revenue shortfalls, and other unforeseen circumstances. This money is not budgeted and typically is found in supplemental budgeting documents like audit reports that are not readily accessible to the citizenry. This research focuses on Mississippi counties and identifies levels of unreserved fund balances maintained by these counties. It also uses the Bounded Fiscal and Politico-Structure perspectives to explain those factors that influence the change of those levels during times of fiscal plenty and fiscal stress.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: During the economic boom years of the 1990s most states cut taxes; some states cut local property taxes. A number of states also restricted the future growth of the unpopular property tax by limiting local tax rates, capping the rate at which rising market values could be captured by taxes, expanding homestead exemption eligibility or amounts, and requiring majority or supermajority votes for property tax increases. For the most part, states held their local governments economically harmless for these changes. But the recession of 2001 and beyond makes reimbursements to local governments for tax expenditures an attractive target for state cuts, and threatens local government fiscal viability when local access to alternative sources of revenue is limited. The article finds evidence of fiscal centralization of property taxes during the period 1992-2002, and reviews the case for local fiscal autonomy.