In this paper we develop and resolve a tension amidst several widely held – and sensible – general propositions concerning municipal public finance. On the one hand, local governments are supposed to be scrupulous protectors of public dollars. And yet there is also widespread agreement that...

States and localities offer businesses an enormous amount of tax incentives to locate within their jurisdictions despite: 1) the mass of evidence that suggests that these incentives are not particularly effective and, 2) substantial doubts about their constitutionality. In this essay, we develop...

This essay analyzes how state-level cap-and-trade regimes can be improved by incorporating tax elements. This essay explains how tax elements could improve the efficiency of auction pricing, with a focus on evaluating California's cap-and-trade regime (AB 32)

This essay evaluates the limits on the U.S. federal government's powers to restrict the taxing powers of state governments. The essay revisits earlier debates on this question, to consider the implications of the Supreme Court's decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius...

The current structure of U.S. federal tax law incentivizes state governments to adopt tax policies that inflict costs on the federal government, at the expense of national welfare. We label this the “tax cannibalization problem.” This article introduces the tax cannibalization problem to the...

This essay analyzes the implications of two recent Supreme Court cases on state and local taxation: Alabama Department of Revenue v. CSX Transportation Inc. and Direct Marketing Association v. Brohl. We argue that both of these decisions not only fail to resolve major issues in state and local...

Amici write to address specific matters of tax policy and history raised by this case. In particular, amici address 1) the history and justification for water's edge combined reporting (the “water's edge method”) and 2) the history and justification for the remedial provisions that are...

This is the first of a series of essays wherein we analyze the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair. In this essay, we tackle some of the more immediate interpretive questions raised by the Wayfair opinion, such as how a state should approach substantial nexus. As part of our...