This handbook evaluates the persistent problems in the fiscal systems of state and local governments and what can be done to solve them. Each chapter provides a description of the discipline area, examines major developments in policy practices and research, and opines on future prospects.

State tax revenues continue, since the Great Recession, to experience elevated volatility relative to previous decades. The elevated tax revenue volatility is due to both economic uncertainty and the riskiness of the tax portfolios state governments are holding. Since the Great Recession, 18...