Economic Growth & Development

Cronyism is an umbrella term covering a host of government activities by which an industry or even a single firm or speculator is given favors and support that they could not attain in market competition. This report explains what opens government to cronyism, gives a brief rundown of recent examples of cronyism in North Carolina, and offers several possible reforms.

Private, charter, and home schools continue to be popular in many states, including North Carolina. This popularity, however, has not produced a significant enrollment shift from district schools to schools of choice – private, charter, or home schools. North Carolina and nine other states had a net increase in the percentage of students attending a school of choice between 2001 and 2010, but statewide market share increases were trivial. School choice reformers must continue their praiseworthy efforts to expand educational options for families. They must also recognize that the traditional public school system will remain the primary provider of schooling for most families.

Declining fish stocks are affecting N.C. fishermen and fishing communities despite the U.S. government spending $70 million a year to bail out failing federally managed fisheries under traditional management systems. Catch shares are a transformative approach to fisheries management that inject property rights into the fisheries to produce a sea change in incentives. Catch shares eliminate race to fish, encourage a more discriminating harvest, and reduce bycatch. Research finds strong links between catch shares and improved economic and biological performance of fisheries and that switching fisheries to catch share systems not only slows their decline but possibly stops (or even reverses) it.

County and municipal governments provide many key services while taking in billions of dollars in revenue, but finding comparative data is hard. That's why this report provides information of how much local government costs in every city and county in North Carolina.

This Regional Brief critiques the process used by the Wake County Sustainability Task Force and its final report. The author was a member of the task force.

North Carolina’s Unemployment Insurance (UI) administrators have vastly outspent revenues and generated a debt of $2.6 billion with the federal government—the third-highest in the nation, on a per-capita basis. This report proposes five ways for legislators to address this rapidly growing problem.

North Carolina's corporate income tax should be repealed, not reformed. It violates all basic principles of sound economic policy and open government. It not only imposes a second and even a third layer taxation on many people’s incomes, but it is hidden, dishonest, and inconsistent with informed decision making in a free and democratic society.

Buncombe County commissioners seek voter approval of a sales-tax hike, promising that the $7 million that would be raised would be given to AB Tech for a new building and renovations,. The funds would go into the county’s general fund, however and could be spent on any legal purpose.

The General Assembly's no-tax-hike budget sets North Carolina state government on a more sustainable course than the one Gov. Beverly Perdue and her allies supported. It avoids an $850 million tax increase Gov. Bev Perdue sought, which means $200 less in taxes per household. General Fund spending totals $19.5 billion, two percent less than Gov. Perdue's original, $19.9 billion proposal.

The John Locke Foundation asked The Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University (BHI) to use its North Carolina State Tax Analysis Modeling Program (NC-STAMP®) to analyze three state tax proposals. The tax changes would provide a powerful stimulus to the North Carolina economy. Employment would increase by 14,922 in 2012, and when fully implemented in 2013 would create 17,016 by leaving more money in the hands of the state’s households and businesses. The combination of individual income tax and sales tax changes would increase real disposable income by $1.1 billion in 2012 and $1.6 billion in 2013. (Revised May 10, 2011)