This paper examines trends in California taxes and expenditures at the state and local level. In particular, it considers whether Proposition 13, which has been blamed by politicians and the press for virtually every ensuing fiscal problem facing state and local governments in California,...

Massive school district consolidation is driven by the presumption among education professionals that there are economies of scale in education (lower costs or greater value provided per student for larger numbers of students). But while educators have argued for economies of school district...

Galles and Sexton (1998) showed that California state and local revenues exceeded their previous real per capita levels as did the sum of property taxes plus charges and miscellaneous revenues within a decade after Proposition 13 passed, and concluded that Proposition 13 was only temporarily...

Many great economic thinkers, including Alfred Marshall and William Stanley Jevons discussed the importance of joint production, or productive complements, and there are important applications. Yet many students today could complete an economics major and never be introduced to this important...

Election fraud can threaten democracy if many ineligible people are allowed to vote. The usual policy prescription is to increase monitoring cost. However, this is very costly. This paper proposes a more cost effective strategy: substitute tougher and consistent statutes across states against...