The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) is a federal tax incentive used to promote investment in low-income neighborhoods. Many of these neighborhoods are home to historically marginalized communities. However, very few minority-led institutions participate in the NMTC program. This Article provides...

Tax competition among the States, in particular the use of targeted tax incentives, is a compelling problem in our federal system. In order to attract corporations and the employment opportunities they represent, States engage in a quot;race to the bottomquot; through destructive bidding wars....

Microenterprise support programs (MESP) have gained popularity as a modern development policy starting in the 1980s, with an increasing number of countries adopting this strategy to enhance economic growth. However, few studies examine the effectiveness of these programs. This paper will...

The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals calls for the elimination of many global challenges related to poverty. The first Sustainable Development Goal – the elimination of poverty – targets the challenges faced by the more than 700 million people who live on less...

Globally, 1.7 billion adults still lack access to formal financial services, with a large percentage living in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Current financial inclusion strategies seek to enhance these vulnerable populations' access to financial services with the aim of building more...

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) is the largest federal program focused on increasing the supply of affordable housing. The credit is designed as a collaboration among the federal government, states, localities, developers, and investors. But it is not meeting its goals. Budget hawks...

Currently, most subnational government borrowing in the United States is done via tax-exempt muni bonds. But these bonds are riddled with problems. They are inefficient at delivering the subsidy, and they create economic distortions of investment choices. They are inequitable, and they have...

The United States implements much of its social policy through the income tax laws. The Code is rife with tax expenditures for education, housing, community economic development, retirement savings, and health care to name a few. But the IRS is not an agency with expertise in any of these areas...

A great deal of scholarship focuses on whether we should place social safety net and redistribution programs within the tax sphere and under the responsibility of the IRS. But much of this literature misses a key point. These programs are here, and they are unlikely to leave the tax sphere. But...