National Tax Journal articles from March 1999

National Tax Journal archives from March 1999

The effect of school finance reform on population heterogeneity.
March 1, 1999... This paper tests whether school funding reform has an impact on community income homogeneity. It is hypothesized that restricting the latitude that local communities have in making funding decisions will diminish the level of household sorting...

Financing universal health care in the United States: a general equilibrium analysis of efficiency and distributional effects.
March 1, 1999... Although the Clinton Administration's Health Security Plan was not enacted, health insurance remains the subject of active policy debate. This paper presents simulations of the static efficiency and distributional effects of financing universal...

Distributional aspects of an environmental tax shift: the case of motor vehicle emissions taxes.
March 1, 1999... Policymakers are currently viewing with favor economic incentive approaches to reducing pollution, yet enthusiasm for such approaches on efficiency grounds is usually tempered by concerns over equity. This is especially the case for motor...

The consumption tax and the saving elasticity.
March 1, 1999... It is often assumed that, if an income tax is converted to a consumption tax, the resulting change in the capital/labor ratio of the economy depends on the saving elasticity (the response of individual saving to the interest rate). Some...

Consumers' share and producers' share of the general sales tax.
March 1, 1999... INTRODUCTION While the state general sales tax is a tax on final consumption, its base also includes substantial sales to businesses, raising the specter of tax pyramiding/cascading. Suppose, for example, that a state taxes electricity...

Inflation, taxes, and the durability of capital.
March 1, 1999... INTRODUCTION Auerbach (1979a, 1981) highlighted a key cost of higher inflation, namely, that it leads to potentially large interasset distortions. Assuming geometric depreciation, he shows that higher inflation has a larger adverse effect...

Proposition 13: unintended effects and feasible reforms.(California Proposition 13)
March 1, 1999... In June of 1978, California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 13 and thus started the modern tax-limitation movement. Since then, measures restricting the taxing and spending authority of state and local governments have been...

Do tax and expenditure limits provide a free lunch? Evidence on the link between limits and public sector service quality.
March 1, 1999... INTRODUCTION In June of 1978, the voters of California forever changed the landscape of state and local public finance. The passage of Proposition 13 stimulated a tax revolt across the United States, the effects of which are still felt,...

Proposition 13 and its offspring: for good or for evil?(California Proposition 13)
March 1, 1999... The legacy of Proposition 13 certainly includes harmful effects in California as documented in this Forum by Downes and Figlio (1999) with regard to school districts and by, Sexton, Sheffrin, and O'Sullivan (1999) with respect to horizontal...

Privatizing Social Security.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Privatizing Social Security. Edited by MARTIN FELDSTEIN. Chicago: University of Chicago Press for the NBER, 1998. Pp. 471. This book is a collection of articles presented at an NBER conference to explore the option of privatizing the Social...

Industrial Incentives: Competition Among American States and Cities.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Industrial Incentives: Competition Among American States and Cities. By PETER S. FISHER AND ALAN H. PETERS INTRODUCTION Industrial Incentives by Peter Fisher and Alan Peters provides a careful and methodical explanation of the theory...