State business climate indexes capture state policies that might affect economic growth. State rankings in these indexes vary wildly, raising questions about what the indexes measure and which policies are important for growth. Indexes focused on productivity do not predict economic growth,...

We show that isolated capital cities are robustly associated with greater levels of corruption across US states, in line with the view that this isolation reduces accountability, and in contrast with the alternative hypothesis that it might forestall political capture. We then provide direct...

The No Child Left Behind (NLCB) Act required states to adopt accountability systems measuring student proficiency on state administered exams. Based on student test score performance in 2002, states developed initial proficiency rate targets and future annual benchmarks designed to lead students...

Using a sample of the 48 mainland U.S. states for the period 1973-2009, we study the ability of U.S. states to expand own state employment through the use of state deficit policies. The analysis allows for the facts that U.S. states are part of a wider monetary and economic union with free...

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was the US government's fiscal response to the Great Recession. An important component of ARRA's $796 billion proposed budget was $318 billion in fiscal assistance to state and local governments. We examine the historical experience of federal...

The Federal government has spent billions of dollars to support turnarounds of low-achieving schools, yet most evidence on the impact of such turnarounds comes from high-profile, exceptional settings and not from examples driven by state policy decisions at scale. In this paper, we study the...

It is widely believed that politicians allocate public resources in ways to maximize political gains. But what is less clear is whether this comes at a cost to welfare; and if so, whether alternative electoral rules can help reduce these costs. In this paper, we address both of these questions by...

One of the most common policy prescriptions to reduce the spread of COVID-19 has been to legally enforce social distancing through state or local shelter-in-place orders (SIPOs). This paper is the first to explore the comparative effectiveness of early county-level SIPOs versus later statewide...

This paper examines the determinants of social distancing during the COVID-19 epidemic. We classify state and local government actions, and we study multiple proxies for social distancing based on data from smart devices. Mobility fell substantially in all states, even ones that have not adopted...

The magnitude and the direction of net international capital flows does not fit neo-classical models. The 50 U.S. states comprise an integrated capital market with very low barriers to capital flows, which makes them an ideal testing ground for neoclassical models. We develop a simple...