I develop a framework, based on tax price, which measures the distributional consequences of any alternative property tax base definition. Using administrative data, I show that defining tax base as market value produces large amounts of idiosyncratic tax-price risk. I show that an assessment...

Purpose – This article aims to explore recent trends in farmland rental markets using data for the state of Illinois. Trends in the types of rental agreements used and the relationship between the rental rate for those contracts, land values, crop revenues, production costs, and farm returns...

Over the past decade, the per capita property tax bases of local governments have experienced large upward and downward movements as the result of the boom and bust in real estate markets. This paper provides some evidence on how local governments balance their budgets as their tax base changes....

In recent years, the IMF has released a growing number of reports and other documents covering economic and financial developments and trends in member countries. Each report, prepared by a staff team after discussions with government officials, is published at the option of the member country.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines’s 2003 Article IV Consultation reports that it had moderate levels of public sector debt and debt service during the 1990s. To reduce growth volatility, since the mid-1990s, the government has attempted to implement an economic diversification program...

This paper analyzes developments in non-oil tax policy, administration, and revenues in Azerbaijan, and suggests measures for further improvement. The main finding is that Azerbaijan's non-oil tax revenues increased significantly as a share of non-oil GDP in the last five years, but remain below...

House prices in Europe have shown diverging trends, and this paper seeks to explain these differences by analyzing three groups of countries: the "fast lane", the average performers, and the slow movers. Price movements in the first two groups are found to be driven mostly by income and trends...

The paper discusses some channels through which corruption affects growth such as the impact of corruption on enterprises, on the allocation of talent, and on investment. It also discusses the impact of corruption on some aspects of public finance.

Popular wisdom and economic research suggest that the quality of the neighborhood school should be an important determinant of housing values. Many researchers have found that housing values are higher where school spending or student test scores are higher. However, few economists consider...

The main challenges for this review were to further redress long-running problems in the energy sector and to balance fiscal policy requirements for development spending with macroeconomic stability. The financial position of the state-owned electricity company (KESH) deteriorated significantly...