The paper explores the potential link between Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and the theoretical developments associated with New Institutional Economics (NIE). The emphasis is put in particular on the contributions of two Nobel Prize winners in economics, Douglass C. North and Elinor Ostrom,...

Public pensions in the United States face an impending funding crisis in the wake of the financial crisis and the COVID-19 recession. Many cities and states will struggle to meet these growing obligations without major cuts in government services, reneging on pension promises, or raising taxes....

New Jersey entered the 2008 recession in a weakened fiscal and economic condition. With the state's economy and revenues closely linked to Wall Street, the collapse of the financial sector and its aftershocks - rising unemployment and falling income leaves New Jersey facing “a historic revenue...

This is a policy paper on the stimulus plan as of December 2008.Fear of a deep recession has led policy makers to propose an unprecedented stimulus package to save the economy, a sort of Main Street economic recovery package that would rely heavily on government-sponsored infrastructure projects...

Based on the fiscal year 2013 Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports of the 50 states, this study ranks states' fiscal solvency using 14 metrics that assess whether the states can meet their short-term bills and long-term obligations. State finances are analyzed according to five dimensions of...

In the larger policy debate over the role of public sector unions, there is a tendency to blur the lines between the history and goals of the private sector union movement and those of the public sector union movement, and thereby misunderstand their unique effects. The public sector union...

This study focuses on public sector benefits costs in the state of New Jersey. Along with several other states, New Jersey’s pension system is badly underfunded and health care and other benefits for public sector workers (known as Other Post Employment Benefits, or OPEB) are entirely...

In 2012 GASB updated its guidance for the reporting and measurement of public pension plan data, and in fiscal year (FY) 2015, state and local governments began to adopt the new standards, known as GASB 67 and GASB 68, in their comprehensive annual financial reports (CAFRs). The new standards...

"The chapters in this volume analyze the interplay between knowledge, public policy, and entrepreneurship in both theory and practice. In particular, they examine how policymakers often struggle with limited economic knowledge, which hinders their ability to intervene in the market process to...