 State and local government employment in the COVID-19 crisisDaniel Green and Erik Loualiche Journal of Public Economics, 2021, vol. 193, issue C Abstract: Local governments are facing large losses in revenues and increased expenditures because of the COVID-19 crisis. We document a causal relationship between fiscal pressures induced by COVID-19 and the layoffs of state and local government workers. States that depend more on sales tax as a source of revenue laid off significantly more workers than other states. The CARES Act’s provision of $150 billion in aid to state and local governments reduced the fiscal pressures they faced. Exploiting a kink in the formula for allocation of funding across states, we estimate that without this funding state and local governments would have laid off an additional 401,000 workers in April 2020, 40 percent more than realized. State rainy day fund balances limit the sensitivity of employment to these revenue shocks, revealing that balanced budget requirements for state and local governments increase the procyclicality of public service provision. Keywords: State and local government; Public policy; Public finance; Balanced budget requirements (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:193:y:2021:i:c:s0047272720301857 DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104321 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier |
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