The clock is ticking towards December 30, 2017.  As part of…

Passage of Proposition 80, the tax hike proposal scheduled to appear on the November 2018 Massachusetts ballot, will fail to generate the level of revenue growth projected by its backers.

This report urges proponents of a 2018 statewide ballot initiative that would add a surcharge on the state taxes of those earning over $1 million annually to look at the experience of Connecticut, where multiple rounds of tax hikes aimed at high earners triggered an exodus of large employers and high-earning individuals that resulted in declining tax revenue.

In Leveling the playing field: the need for taxi reform in the Commonwealth, authors Matt Blackbourn and Gregory Sullivan describe some of the unfair and outdated regulatory restrictions that cab operators face, and offer recommendations for the ride-for-hire task force, to be established by new legislation.

This report updates a 2006 study of 14 Massachusetts cities with populations of more than 40,000 and average per-capita annual incomes of below $25,000 (Pittsfield is the one city in the study in which per-capita income is greater than $25,000). It provides a report card on how these Middle Cities are faring a decade after our last analysis, in terms of economic development, financial administration, education, and public safety. The aim is to inform the current policy discourse on redevelopment strategies in these important cities to identify municipalities and policy approaches that may serve as models for all Middle Cities.

The fact is that the unemployment rate doesn't tell the whole story. Strictly defined as the percentage of the population who are out of work and actively seeking employment, this metric provides a very narrow lens through which to evaluate labor market performance. A look at labor participation rates — the labor force as a percentage of the civilian non-institutional population — helps paint a more accurate picture.

In a recently published article,1 Robert Novy-Marx identifies what he believes are inconsistencies in the valuation methods espoused by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB). He advocates that current GASB methodologies for determining the discount rate be replaced by what some academic economists call a “fair-value” or “risk-adjusted” rate of return.

"Massachusetts’ New Economy" was presented by Jim Stergios in 2011.

The study's first major finding is that Massachusetts is losing the relocation game: many more establishments have moved out of state than have entered, and the trend has worsened since 2000. At the net level, Massachusetts has lost 2,152 establishments and 24,088 jobs during this time period.

This brief examines how jobs have been created and lost in Massachusetts in the eighteen- year period (1990-2007) leading up to the current recession.