How much of a burden are taxes in Massachusetts compared with other states? It all depends on how you make the comparison. In one common measure–total tax burden (state and […]
Economy
Posted inEconomy
Anti-family values
Photographs by Flint Born TRACEY AND SEAN FRANCIS used to look forward to Fridays, but not for the usual reasons. That’s the day The Patriot Ledger newspaper carries its big […]
Posted inEconomy, State House News Service
The New Economys dubious dividend
As we find ourselves heading into a particularly brutal state budget-debate season, the focus, naturally enough, is on the fiscal realities ahead and how to come to terms with them. […]
Posted inEconomy
New Economy Potential
The good news is that Massachusetts has retained its number-one ranking in the California-based Milken Institute’s annual New Economy Index, which measures states by their potential for high-tech growth. The […]
Posted inEconomy
Shooting for self-sufficiency
It took Mary Lou Rockwell, a job counselor and social worker at the Metro South/West Regional Employment Board’s Framingham office, three days to get through what is usually a one-hour […]
Posted inEconomy
Economists give their prognoses for recovery
Left to right: Adrienne Ortyl, Paul Harrington, and Alan Clayton-Matthews. Back in March, when economists and other observers were trying to figure out what kept consumers spending even as indicators […]
Posted inEconomy
Small cities face big economic challenges
In the shadow of Mount Greylock, high in the rolling Berkshires, Pittsfield opens the commercial gateway to western Massachusetts. . . . Today the city has a prosperous, tranquil look […]
Posted inEconomy
The death and life of American cities
The Boston Renaissance: Race, Space and Economic Change in an American Metropolis By Barry Bluestone and Mary Huff Stevenson Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2000, 461 pages Comeback Cities: A […]
Posted inEconomy
New Economy New Philanthropy
Not long ago, at an estate-planning seminar, a Boston money manager told this story: He paid a call on an older couple who lived on Cape Cod. They had a […]
Posted inEconomy
Recycling Economics
When it comes to recycling, it sure seems easy to be green these days: After all, everyone knows that the more a community recycles, the more it saves on trash […]
Posted inEconomy
Economist Juliet B Schor on the Maxedout Middle Class
With the publication of The Overworked American in 1992, Harvard economist Juliet B. Schor became part of the tiny company of left-wing economists who have found a wide national audience. […]
Posted inEconomy
On Heritage Road
This article first appeared in CommonWealth’s Spring 1996 issue, the premiere issue of the magazine.
