Fiscal Capacity, Fiscal Need, and Fiscal Comfort among U.S. States: New Evidence

Robert Tannenwald and Jonathan Cowan

Publius: The Journal of Federalism, vol. 27, issue 3, 113-126

Abstract: During its lifetime, the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations periodically published estimates of each state's relative fiscal capacity. This research note provides new estimates updated to fiscal year 1994, the latest year for which all requisite underlying data are available. We find that dispersion in capacity narrowed from 1987 to 1994, largely because the capacities of California and the Northeast states, historically enjoying ample capacity, fell relative to the national average. We also find that these states generally experienced an increase in relative fiscal need, further narrowing interstate dispersion in fiscal comfort (capacity relative to need). We conclude with evidence suggesting that states with low fiscal comfort generally prefer relatively low levels of state and local public services. Copyright , Oxford University Press.

References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/ (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:publus:v:27:y::i:3:p:113-126

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Publius: The Journal of Federalism is currently edited by Paul Nolette and Philip Rocco

More articles in Publius: The Journal of Federalism from CSF Associates Inc. Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().