This report on the North Dakota tax system is a by-product of a much broader study of the impacts of increased coal production in the Northern Great Plains. Subsequent research will examine the effects of coal development on state and local financial resources; demands for local government...

UK Government departments are required to undertake a Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) when introducing any policy change that places a burden on businesses, charities, the voluntary sector or individuals. Part of this assessment involves the appraisal of the costs (and benefits) associated...

The paper examines growth in the U.S. agricultural sector under the conditions hypothesized by endogenous growth theory. Public capital and R&D in agriculture are explicitly considered to capture the effect of public inputs. Results support some of the necessary conditions for this hypothesis to...

The Grant-in-Aid Program is a State sponsored seed grant program whereby the State of Minnesota provides the University of Minnesota approximately $2 million annually to fund new faculty research. Recently, the Graduate School engaged in an internal review of the Grant-in-Aid program. The...

Voluntary donations to non-game species protection through state income tax checkoffs are analyzed. An analogy between the contingent valuation method and check-off scheme is drawn by observing the existence of agenda effects in the latter. Results reveal that substitution and sequencing effects...

The Food and Rural Economics Division of ERS designed the following series of policy-oriented, timely publications to provide background and analysis for decision makers and others.

Rural areas in the United States stand to benefit from new highway funding legislation, especially the South. The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) authorizes sharply increased funding for major roads and is the single largest public works bill in U.S. history. Over a...

Several food market indicators would change if a flat income tax system -- that is, a system without exemptions, deductions, credits, and deferrals-replaced the current system. Our findings support the widely held view that even though a flat income tax system would increase national income,...

A severance tax can provide local jurisdictions with additional revenues to finance economic development, yet the imposition of a tax may create coal industry employment losses. This research analyzes this issue by examining the demand for Pennsylvania steam coal, providing estimates of the...