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Journal Article
\"Tough Love\": implications for redistributive policy
Jason Saving explores the economic and political implications of "tough love" for redistributive policy. The American welfare system unquestionably helps support the least fortunate among us, but, in making poverty less onerous, it may discourage employment among some individuals. Traditional notions of altruism assume that compassion for the poor is measured by one's willingness to redistribute income but to the extent that more generous support for the poor actually encourages recipiency, welfare programs simultaneously mitigate and exacerbate the problem of poverty. A "new ...
Journal Article
Texas K–12 Education Spending Set to Rise, but Who Will Pay?
The Texas Legislature approved increased public school spending while at the same time limiting property tax increases. Because new revenue to fund this increase over the longer term was not identified, the latest fix may not fully provide a long-term solution to meeting local districts? needs.
Journal Article
COVID-19’s Fiscal Ills: Busted Texas Budgets, Critical Local Choices
COVID-19 and related economic shutdowns have raised concerns that state and local government revenues will fall short of expectations just as demand for services soars.
Journal Article
Falling off the fiscal cliff
Some suggest the best alternative strategy may be to combine short-term spending with longer-term fiscal consolidation?though such a strategy may be easier said than done.
Journal Article
Fiscal fitness: the U.S. budget deficit’s uncertain prospects
Recent headlines tell us U.S. budget deficits have been shrinking in the past few years, but Washington?s fiscal fitness remains a matter of concern.
Working Paper
Are income taxes destined to rise? the fiscal imbalance and future tax policy
We present a model of optimizing government behavior in which a need for increased revenue leads to the introduction of a new revenue source, such as a VAT, accompanied by a reduction in income taxes. We argue that this is a plausible outcome for the United States, in view of international experience and recent fiscal reform proposals, and has important implications for individual investment decisions.
Working Paper
Income inequality and political polarization: time series evidence over nine decades
Rising income inequality and political polarization have led some to hypothesize that the two are causally linked. Properly interpreting such correlations is complicated by the multiple factors that drive each of these phenomena, potential feedbacks between inequality and polarization, measurement issues, and statistical challenges for modeling non-stationary variables. We find that a more precise measure of inequality (the inverted Pareto-Lorenz coefficient) is statistically related to polarization while a less precise one (top 1% income share) is not, and that there are bi-directional ...
Journal Article
Federal health care law promises coverage for all, but at a price
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as health care reform, was signed into law last March. The measure ostensibly provides health care coverage to almost all Americans while simultaneously reducing the deficit by $143 billion over 10 years and by a greater amount over the longer term.
Journal Article
Can the nation stimulate its way to prosperity?
The Federal Reserve and Congress responded to the most recent financial crisis with measures to unclog credit channels, shore up the faltering housing market and provide breathing space for large, interconnected financial firms on the verge of collapse. Amid the turmoil came fiscal actions--notably the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the fiscal stimulus plan signed into law in February 2009 by President Obama. Passage of the stimulus plan was accompanied by a mix of great expectations and controversy. Christina Romer, incoming head of the Council of Economic Advisers at the time, ...