The authors analyze the budget problems of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin. They say states can avoid dramatic revenue fluctuations if they devise budgets that are balanced over the business cycle rather than just one year. States should begin now to distinguish between...

The City of Chicago and the inner suburbs grew much more slowly than the outer suburbs in recent decades. In the central county of the metropolitan area, commercial and industrial property is "classified," in that it is assessed at a higher ratio of market value than residential property....

Provides some preliminary systematic evidence on state spending and presents an abundance of descriptive statistics on spending and on the demographic and economic characteristics of the states.

How are major state revenue sources affected by the business cycle? Could changing the mix of taxes mitigate the severity of cyclical budget problems? This paper examines issues in estimating and interpreting the short–run elasticity of taxes with respect to personal income. Recent literature...