This paper employs Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports of the 35 largest population American cities from 2005 to 2011 to examine how these cities managed the Great Recession, which was a global macroeconomic shock particularly damaging to the housing sector. While broader surveys of local...

The property tax rate, according to the residual view, is simply the ratio of levies over total assessed values, so that growth in property values is irrelevant to the revenue raised. Critics of this view claim instead that fiscal illusion allows policymakers to take advantage of increased...

The textbook view of the real property tax is that the tax rate is simply a residual, determined by dividing the revenue to be raised from the property tax by the taxable base of assessed values. As such, tax rate adjustment is automatic and changes in assessed values are neutral with respect to...