Tax Collections Continue to Tumble

States suffered from falling tax revenues again in the third quarter, compared to the previous year, according to preliminary data in this report. Tax collections fell 10.7 percent overall. It was the fourth consecutive drop for personal income and sales tax.
Read the news releaseRead the report

Needed: Better Way to Compare Health Plans

National health reform will rely on consumer choice and competition to control costs whether or not there is a public insurance option, according to this Institute report. Rational consumer choice, however, is difficult without standardizing health insurance plans, so that value can be easily compared. States may have to play a key role in such standardization.
Read the news release Read the reportState case studies

Researchers Present Recent Work

Trends in state and local government finance, social welfare spending, and gambling revenues to states are among the topics Rockefeller Institute researchers have explored in recent conference papers and presentations.
T. Gais, L. Dadayan and S. Bae on social welfare spending
Donald Boyd on state budgets and health reform
Donald Boyd on fiscal sustainabillity
Lucy Dadayan on gambling revenues to the states
Robert Ward on state budget gaps

A Tribute to Richard P. Nathan's Leadership

Richard P. Nathan has retired from the Rockefeller Institute, after 20 years. He brought to the Institute a rich background in policy and politics, and as Acting Director Thomas Gais writes in this message, he left the organization with a distinctive mission and method of conducting research. His own writing often reflected his concern for injecting better analysis into public decisions.
Read the letter

From Our Experts...

A Downward Slide, Before Things Grew Worse

By David J. Wright
There was a decidedly negative turn in the condition of central cities and metro areas since 2000 — even before the hardening recession took hold in 2008. And the slide was steepest in areas of the country that previously led the way in economic growth.

Out-of-State Students: Problem or Solution?

By David Shaffer
The idea of saving New Yorkers some tax money by charging much higher tuition for out-of-state students at the State University may seem tempting. But with upstate’s population stagnant at best, maybe New York needs those young out-of-staters at least as much as they need SUNY.