Policy Research

(August 5, 2022) Past Arkansas Policy Foundation research memos have identified cyclical turns in the U.S. economy prior to official announcements from the NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee, the leading arbiterwithin the economics profession. Arkansas...

(June 2022) Policymakers have proposed phasing-out the Arkansas income tax, which generates about $4 billion in annual revenues. The Arkansas capital gains tax has generated between $54.7 million and $115.9 million in annual revenues in...

(May 2022) Nonfarm payroll employment is the broadest economic indicator at the state level. Utah had a higher jobs creation rate than any state in the last economic expansion, according to a Policy Foundation analysis...

(2Q-2022) States without an income tax led the Southeast and Arkansas' border region in jobs creation in the first two years of the national economic expansion that began in April 2020, Bureau of Labor Statistics...

First in a series of interviews. "What stays in my mind about Arkansas are the wide-open spaces. It was my first long-distance drive west of theMississippi in a car. Some people think this type of...

(2Q-2022) Three years into a national economic expansion, Arkansas trails the national average in jobs creation, according to a review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics records. Arkansas led 11 other states during the period....

(April 2022) Total Arkansas exports to Russia in 2020 were minuscule and totaled only $7,453,518 of Arkansas' total exports of $5,196,834,082, state Department of Commerce records show. Russia ranked 50th in the world that year...

(March 2022) Nearly 290,000 Arkansas filers paid the top state income tax rate last year, according to a state Department of Finance and Administration document. Tax cut opponents claim only a few Arkansans pay the...

"Arkansas would benefit from comprehensive, pro-growth reform; Arkansans are not under-taxed; taxes and rates do matter to entrepreneurs; dynamic scoring of tax changes and effects provides benefits." Arkansas Policy Foundation Mission Statement (March 2022) Thirteen...

(March 2022) The natural state of the U.S. economy is expansion, though recessions occur as a result of the business cycle. The economy is in the 13th expansion of the postwar era, according to the...