Since early 90s, the issue of income convergence across regions has been widely discussed in a number of papers, both looking at long-term tendencies and trying to establish the role played by several socio-economic determinants. Much less attention has instead been devoted to the analysis of...

The recent slowdown in the U.S. economy has led to state and local government tax increases and expenditure cuts that have lowered aggregate demand, in contrast to earlier downturns when the sector provided significant automatic stabilizers. Several explanations for this change are examined,...