IMFG is pleased to release two new papers: Cooperation and Capacity: Inter-Municipal Agreements in Canada, and Can GTA Municipalities Raise Property Taxes? An Analysis of Tax Competition and Revenue Hills.
The first, Cooperation and Capacity: Inter-Municipal Agreements in Canada by Zachary Spicer, explores the little-studied question of how cities are working together on a voluntary basis to provide a wide range of local services in metropolitan areas in Canada. It focuses on six inter-local agreements in Canada and suggests further avenues for research. View IMFG Paper No. 19 here.
The second, Can GTA Municipalities Raise Property Taxes? An Analysis of Tax Competition and Revenue Hills by Almos Tassonyi, Richard M. Bird, and Enid Slack applies an empirical lens to this controversial question. Cities in the GTA and across Canada are reluctant to raise property taxes, both because the public resists paying higher taxes, and because cities are concerned that property owners will move to jurisdictions with lower tax burdens. The authors find that overall there is room for most municipalities in the GTA to increase property taxes without, in most cases, lowering the tax base. View IMFG Paper No. 20 here.
About the Authors
Richard M. Bird is Senior Fellow of the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance, and Professor Emeritus, Department of Economics, at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.
Enid Slack is the Director of the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance, and an Adjunct Professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto.
Zachary Spicer is a SSHRC Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy at Wilfrid Laurier University. From 2013 to 2014, he held a post-doctoral fellowship at the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance, University of Toronto.
Almos Tassonyi is Executive Fellow and Director, Urban Policy Program, at the School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, and an Adjunct Professor of Economics, Ryerson University.
For more information, please contact:
Dina Graser
Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance
University of Toronto
dina.graser@utoronto.ca
416-978-2168
www.munkschool.utoronto.ca/imfg