Research Projects

Through grants from the National Science Foundation, state agencies, and private foundations, the lab undertakes several multi-year research initiatives. Our most recent projects focus on local fiscal and budget rules, school district fiscal autonomy, and intergovernmental grants. Past research initiatives have examined municipal fiscal retrenchment and recovery, government fiscal health, revenue diversification and forecasting, local government fragmentation, and democratic institutions for fiscal and budgetary decision-making. Most of these projects use original datasets and apply models and methods from multiple fields including public finance and budgeting, political economy, institutional economics, and organization theory. The goal of these research initiatives is not only to help bridge the gaps in our knowledge of different public budgeting and finance issues but also to generate lessons and insights for policymakers and public administrators at different levels of government who are engaged in leading their organizations in delivering critical public services and infrastructure. Below, you will find the links to these research projects. Each page provides information about the questions that a specific project focuses on and downloadable publications.