Tools for State and Local Fiscal Management

Book excerpt: Governments have always endured economic woes, but the increasing severity of such challenges, from the Great Recession starting in 2008 to the unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, highlight the need for better-developed fiscal analysis capacity in governments of all sizes using the most practical--yet robust--techniques available. This volume presents an array of real-world analytical approaches in a variety of service areas at the core of state and local government. The concrete insights provided by this book serve as important tools for policy analysts, government officials charged with policy implementation, and public finance scholars across developing and developed countries looking for the essential, high-level analytical skills needed to expand internal capacity to weather uncertain economic environments. The book bridges the research-practice gap and provides practical tools for state and local fiscal analysis, including a detailed how-to guide for producing local tax expenditure reports, an age-based homestead exemption estimate calculator with guide, and simple methods for fuzzy matching administrative data. It is backed up with a depth and breadth of case studies on governments of a variety of sizes. Public officials and analysts in local state/regional institutions and international institutions with a public policy focus as well as public finance scholars across developing and developed countries will find invaluable the analyses and tools provided by this book. It also serves as a key resource for students, researchers and instructors across public policy.