Tax increment financing (TIF)--an economic (re)development tool originally designed for urban cities--has been available to rural communities for decades. This is the first study to focus solely on TIF in rural school districts, to examine TIF effects on school districts' property tax base and rates, and to conduct event-study estimations of TIF…

This study projects estimates of changes in State tax patterns resulting from the implementation of a modified foundation grant and a percentage equalizing grant. The resulting estimates show increased progressivity of the State tax structure under both types of grants. (Author)

Empirical studies of the school finance reforms of the 1970s have not indicated that equity has been satisfactorily achieved in all cases. The methods of equity analysis used and the data bases analyzed in those studies have differed enough to prevent ready comparison or the formulation of overall assessments of the effects of school finance…

Concludes that a state may make very uneven progress toward some general equity goal if that equity goal is operationalized in different ways. A preference for tax disparity, expenditure disparity reduction, or wealth neutrality gains may have to be expressed. (Author/IRT)

The Rural Income Maintenance Experiment (1979) used sample subjects from the Midwest and the South (Iowa and North Carolina) to measure the effect of alternative tax rates and minimum guarantees upon the work behavior of rural male heads of households. Three contingent aspects of job change behavior were examined: the impacts of support on…

Conducted in Iowa and North Carolina, the experiment included 809 families randomly selected and assigned to a control group or to 1 of 5 experimental treatments. Eligibility required a family income at the experiment's beginning of less than l 1/2 times the official poverty line. Of the 809 families, 729 remained in the program for the entire 3…