Abstract
According to a recent plurality of the U.S. Supreme Court, the danger that federal taxes will “crowd out” state revenues justifies aggressive judicial limits on the conditions attached to federal spending. Economic theory offers a number of reasons to believe the opposite: federal revenue increases may also float state boats. To test these competing claims, I examine for the first time the relationship between total federal revenues and state revenues. I find that, contra the NFIB plurality, increases in federal revenue -- controlling, of course, for economic performance and other factors -- are associated with a large and statistically significant increase in state revenues.
This version of the study additionally provides extensive background explanations of underlying economic concepts for readers unfamiliar with the prior public finance literature.
Files
Metadata
- Subject
Law and Economics
State and Local Government Law
Taxation-Federal
Taxation-State and Local
- Journal title
Northwestern University Law Review
- Volume
108
- Issue
3
- Pagination
989-1028
- Date submitted
8 September 2022