Urban Institute researchers evaluate federal, state, and local government programs and policies. Early on, we pioneered performance-management techniques government agencies still use to evaluate and improve public services, from economic development to garbage collection. And now we're adapting those strategies for the nonprofit sector—at home and abroad. Read more.
The chairs of a major study commission on our nation's fiscal future say it's time for political leaders and the electorate to come to grips with the tough choices and votes needed to put the country on a sound economic path.
The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program targets debt and equity capital to businesses or organizations situated in low-income, economically distressed communities. This is a report on a diverse sample of five projects that utilized New Markets Tax Credits allocated early in the program's history. Its substantive purpose is to describe the characteristics, evolution, financial arrangements, and anticipated community impacts of the projects, while its methodological purpose is to explore the strengths and limitations of using in-depth, semi-structured telephone interviews with key project actors and stakeholders as a basis for generating data for a future evaluation of the NMTC program.
This study analyzes the funding of local governments in Macedonia today, and whether the current intergovernmental fiscal system provides adequate funding to the local government level. The study relies on a new local government finance database to present a picture of how local government finances have evolved over the last three years, and provides a concrete proposal for initial reforms that would improve the adequacy, efficiency, and equity of intergovernmental financial relations in Macedonia.
Today's federal budget policies are unsustainable. Three programs - Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid - constitute more than 40 percent of spending other than interest in a normal year and all are growing faster than the economy and tax revenues. At the same time, Congress has kept the overall tax burden remarkably constant as a share of gross domestic product for most of the past 50 years. The combination of these factors leads to a growing deficit. This testimony, by a former Congressional Budget Office director, discusses four policy packages that would return the United States to a sustainable budget.
Institute Fellow Rudy Penner describes how the U.S. budget is prepared by the executive branch and Congress, and how it then is implemented by the executive branch. The budget preparation process could be improved, Penner asserts, but budget implementation works smoothly and efficiently. The severe long-run budget problem the country faces is caused by only three spending programs: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. All are growing faster than the economy, and there is strong opposition against raising tax burdens. Changes are suggested for the budget process so that it is better suited for dealing with this long-run problem.
Latest Research
Browse by Topic:
Urban Institute researchers evaluate federal, state, and local government programs and policies. Early on, we pioneered performance-management techniques government agencies still use to evaluate and improve public services, from economic development to garbage collection. And now we're adapting those strategies for the nonprofit sector—at home and abroad. 