This paper investigates the recoveries following the 1990-91 and 2001 recessions on a state by state and regional basis, and examines why different states and regions performed differently over these two expansions. The general conclusion of the study is that, when measured by a six-year Okun...

This paper identifies the states that suffered the largest job losses and the states whose employment levels suffered the least during the 2008/2009 recession. State-by-state performance varied widely during this downturn, with Nevada having the largest percentage job loss, a drop in employment...

This article examines the popular notion that elected officials, particularly at the local level, can not be trusted with broad powers of taxation; that they are likely to use and perhaps abuse all of the powers of taxation they possess. The study looks at the use of tax powers, made over a 30...

Many state legislatures grant local governments the authority to enact sales taxes on retail sales transactions that occur within local jurisdictions. Local government reliance on these local option sales tax (LOST) revenues is increasing. In many states, including Oklahoma, municipal...

We often use the term rural very loosely when discussing public policy. Rarely do we describe explicitly the kinds of places we have in mind for particular programs and craft precise eligibility requirements that deliver the programs to those places without expensive leakages to other,...

The study examines the impact of local Enterprise Zones (EZs) on commercial and industrial property values. Currently, 43 states have established EZ programs to target development incentives to economically distressed areas. While there is a substantial body of literature analyzing the...

State governments that have elected to make investments to increase the availability of affordable broadband service in rural areas and low income urban neighborhoods should organize their efforts around a strategy that encourages and leverages locally- driven initiatives, rather than follow a...

Poverty is not evenly distributed across the American landscape. At the county level of aggregation, poverty is overwhelmingly a rural problem, with the most remote rural places at the greatest disadvantage. 1 Although research has shown that “place matters†in poverty outcomes and...

Large discount retail stores (or “big box†stores) generate both costs and benefits to local communities that are unevenly distributed across local employees, shoppers, other businesses and government. While these impacts affect communities across the urbanrural spectrum, the hardest...