A report by the Pew Center on the States concludes that 13 states are leading the way in generating much-needed answers about tax incentives’ effectiveness. Twelve states have mixed results. Half the states have not taken the basic steps needed to know whether their incentives are effective. The study highlights a wealth of promising approaches states have taken to help lawmakers find those answers.

This paper examines whether raising just the top two or three individual income tax rates alone could put the debt on a sustainable path and what the rates would be under several different scenarios. 

This February 2012 issue brief contained information on a survey on public attitudes on crime and punishment in Georgia.

This report—a follow-up to Data for Democracy—analyze the completeness, strengths, weaknesses, and usefulness of elections data.

This paper describes the policy and administrative reasons for exclusions from the VAT base and the design of a rebate as a substitute for base exclusions to address distributional objectives.  The paper then analyzes the effect of possible exclusions from a U.S. VAT base or a rebate on the VAT rate necessary to achieve a specific deficit reduction target and on the distribution of the tax burden. more

Since 2010, 47 states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws that greatly improved the ability of Americans abroad to vote and have their votes counted.

This 2012 brief details how Results First, an initiative of the Pew Center on the States and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation with additional support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, helped other states implement Washington’s model for use in criminal justice. Over time, this model can be implemented in policy areas such as child welfare, health care, housing, Pre-K-12 education, mental health, public assistance, substance abuse, and teen birth-prevention programs.
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This August 2011 report, Housing Wealth and Higher Education: Building a Foundation for Economic Mobility, assessed how changes in housing wealth during the recent boom and bust affected students’ higher education decisions.

This paper examines two options to increase revenues. The first option is to adopt a value-added tax (VAT). The other option would reduce the deficit by the same amount as the VAT, but in a very different way: by increasing all individual income tax rates, including those that apply to capital gains and dividends.