In response to concerns over funding for school construction, the state of Texas has implemented two programs to assist school districts with construction related debt. This paper examines whether these programs have accomplished their objectives of reducing property taxes (the EDA program) and...

Property taxes are assessed by local taxing jurisdictions, including the county, city, and school district in which a property is located. This study examines the incidence of the residential property tax burden across 357,264 owner-occupied homes in Dallas County, Texas. Progressivity indices...

This study examines whether the appeals process improves assessment uniformity for residential properties. The sample includes all single family residential properties in Harris County, Texas, for 2006-2008. I use a hedonic pricing model and Heckman’s two stage approach to explain the assessed...

Because of tax relief measures, Texas school districts have lost a little over $4 billion in tax revenues, or 23.4 percent of their tax revenue potential, the author says. Tax relief measures for agricultural property have the greatest impact on the poorest school districts, while residential...

In 1993, Texas established a maximum 1.5 percent property tax rate that school districts could impose for purposes of funding their maintenance and operations (M&O). Tax limits are intended to contain government growth and increase the efficiency of government services. Almost all states use...

When optimistic forecasts can improve access to management, rational analysts have incentives to issue optimistically-biased forecasts (Lim, 2001). This paper proposes that the extent of this optimistic forecast bias will depend on the forecast's importance to management. If management attaches...