The Government of Jamaica imposes a variety of taxes on the earnings of labor. Jamaica’s direct taxes and charges on labor income include the pay-asyou-earn (PAYE) income tax and five payroll taxes. In total, these taxes generate nearly one-third of the total tax revenues of the...

Broad-scale demographic changes have implications for state and local finance in terms of the composition of the base of revenue sources and their yields. This article examines the effect of such changes on the potential future yield of consumption-based taxes. The effect of household...

The determinants of school choice have significant implications for a variety of public policies including the impact of school vouchers. This article presents a conceptual and empirical model of individual-level school choice over public in-district and transfer schooling, religious private and...

When the fiscal situation of a country gets too far out of control, government will often call for a comprehensive review of the tax system to try to get back on a sustainable path. Jamaica is just such a case. The Government of Jamaica called in 2005 for a tax reform to address the fiscal...

Alternative hypotheses exist regarding the impact of local sales and income taxes on local governments’ taxing and spending decisions. One hypothesis is that local governments use sales and income taxes to pay for spending increases and leave property tax collections unchanged, while an...

A frequent finding in the local public finance literature is that renters are more likely to support expansions in the local budget than are homeowners. The renters' illusion hypothesis (renters are less aware of tax increases than are homeowners) has been commonly used to explain this behavior...

What factors influence state economic growth? This article uses annual state (and local) data for the years 1947 through 1997 for the forty-eight contiguous states to estimate the effects of a large number of factors, including taxation and expenditure policies, on state economic growth. A...