Oregon Office of Economic Analysis

Next week the Pacific Northwest Regional Economic Conference will be held in Portland. If you’re interested in learning lots of great, new research from economists throughout the NW and Canada, you can still register and attend. Mark will be giving a state of the state economy overview along with his counterparts from other states and provinces and I will be part of a student careers in economics panel along with a more formal research presentation on state tax systems.

Much of the material on state tax systems has been covered previously on the blog, but the presentation was designed to be part of a tribute to the late Lorrie Brown, a longtime economist for the State of Washington. Lorrie was way ahead of the curve on lots of important economic research over the years and also had a great influence on my graduate research. To name just a few of the subjects, Lorrie studied the border tax effect in Washington starting in the late 1980s, she also studied the impact of e-commerce on retailers and sales taxes early in that line of research and more recently worked on a large report for the State titled “The Distribution of Income, Wealth and Taxes Across Washington Households.” Lorrie was a leader in economic research and she will be missed.

Below are my slides on state tax systems. More information on the border tax effect can be found in my academic paper, coauthored with Rossitza Wooster, Professor at Portland State University (gated, ungated). Additional materials can be found here: border tax effect, tobacco taxes, sales and income tax comparison, and aging revenues.

For more on the border tax effect, it appears that the Washington Department of Revenue will be releasing a new, updated report on the subject in the near future (estimated publication date: end of May) so stay tuned for those interested in the subject.