CERF Blog

A lot of state governments are in trouble, afflicted as they are with high expenses and weak revenues. They need to be thinking clearly if they are to have any hope of solving their problems. Unfortunately, lots of fuzzy thinking occurs when it comes to taxes. The biggest problem is that many people think that… Read more

I just read paper The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes: Estimates Based on a New Measure of Fiscal Shocks by Christina Romer and David Romer. It’s in the June 2010 issue of The American Economic Review (AER), the industry’s top peer-reviewed journal. Being in the AER is a guarantee that the paper is rigorous and… Read more

By my count, and I could be wrong, 36 Oregon economist signed a letter supporting the Legislature’s tax increases in response to the State’s budget problem. These are the key paragraphs: “ Cutting state spending reduces in-state aggregate demand, virtually dollar-for-dollar. Some forms of state spending, particularly in the area of health care, bring matching… Read more