Journal Article
Should Philadelphia's suburbs help their central city?
Inman, Robert P. (2003-04)
We end with the age-old debate of city vs. suburbs. The United States is unique in its commitment to local government as the primary provider of essential public services and in its use of local taxes as the primary means for paying for these services. The Philadelphia metropolitan area is typical of the U.S. pattern. But Philadelphia faces the burdens and responsibilities of all older central cities, including a higher proportion of poor residents than its surrounding suburbs. Such circumstances lead the city to impose higher taxes, but raising revenues through higher taxes becomes ...
Business Review , Issue Q2 , Pages 24-26

Journal Article
States in fiscal distress
Inman, Robert P. (2010-10)
The 2007-10 recession has imposed significant fiscal hardships on state and local governments. The result has been state budget deficits and the need to increase state taxes, cut spending, and withdraw funds from state ?rainy day? accounts. The primary cause of state budget ?gaps? has been the rise in the level of state unemployment. There is no evidence that these gaps are related to state political institutions, a state?s prior receipt of federal funding, or possibly favored access to key congressional budget committees. The federal government has responded to these gaps with the passage of ...
Regional Economic Development , Issue Oct , Pages 65-80

Journal Article
Anatomy of a fiscal crisis
Inman, Robert P. (1983-09)
Business Review , Issue Sep/Oct , Pages 15-22

Journal Article
Do you know how much money is in your public purse?
Inman, Robert P. (1995-07)
Business Review , Issue Jul , Pages 19-30

Working Paper
Partisanship and Fiscal Policy in Economic Unions: Evidence from U.S. States
Drautzburg, Thorsten; http://fedora:8080/fcrepo/rest/objects/authors/; Inman, Robert P.; Carlino, Gerald A. (2020-06-01)
In economic unions the fiscal authority consists not of one, but many governments. We analyze whether partisanship of state-level politicians affects federal policies, such as fiscal stimulus in the U.S. Using data from close elections, we find partisan differences in the marginal propensity to spend federal transfers: Republican governors spend less. This partisan difference has tended to increase with measures of polarization. We quantify the aggregate effects in a New Keynesian model of Republican and Democratic states in a monetary union: Lowering partisan differences to levels ...
Working Papers , Paper 20-20

Report
How should suburbs help their central cities?
Inman, Robert P.; Haughwout, Andrew F. (2004)
In this paper, we study the question whether suburbs should help finance the core public services of their central cities. We review three arguments that have been offered in favor of suburbs' fiscal assistance to their central cities. First, the central city provides public services that benefit suburban residents. Second, the central city may provide redistributive services to low-income central city residents that benefit suburbanites with redistributive preferences for such transfers. For efficiency, suburbanites should contribute toward such services in proportion to the benefits they ...
Staff Reports , Paper 186

Journal Article
Can Philadelphia escape its fiscal crisis with another tax increase?
Inman, Robert P. (1992-09)
Business Review , Issue Sep , Pages 5-20

Working Paper
Fiscal stimulus in economic unions: what role for states?
Inman, Robert P.; Carlino, Gerald A. (2015-11-16)
The Great Recession and the subsequent passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act returned fiscal policy, and particularly the importance of state and local governments, to the center stage of macroeconomic policymaking. This paper addresses three questions for the design of intergovernmental macroeconomic fiscal policies. First, are such policies necessary? An analysis of U.S. state fiscal policies show state deficits (in particular from tax cuts) can stimulate state economies in the short run but that there are significant job spillovers to neighboring states. Central government ...
Working Papers , Paper 15-41

Journal Article
Commentary on \\"The geography of entrepreneurship in the New York metropolitan area\\"
Inman, Robert P. (2005-12)
This article is commentary on a paper presented at a conference organized by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in April 2005, "Urban Dynamics in New York City." The goal of the conference was threefold: to examine the historical transformations of the engine-of-growth industries in New York and distill the main determinants of the city's historical dominance as well as the challenges to its continued success; to study the nature and evolution of immigration flows into New York; and to analyze recent trends in a range of socioeconomic outcomes, both for the general population and recent ...
Economic Policy Review , Issue Dec , Pages 55-59

Working Paper
A narrative analysis of post-World War II changes in federal aid
Inman, Robert P.; Carlino, Gerald A. (2012)
Because of lags in legislating and implementing fiscal policy, private agents can often anticipate future changes in tax policy and government spending before these changes actually occur, a phenomenon referred to as fiscal foresight. Econometric analysis that fails to model fiscal foresight may obtain tax and spending multipliers that are biased. One way researchers have attempted to deal with the problem of fiscal foresight is by examining the narrative history of government revenue and spending news. The Great Recession and efforts by the federal government through the American Recovery ...
Working Papers , Paper 12-23