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Further, a lack of comprehensive demographic data prevents us from concluding whether the solar initiative and the decal program have served a diverse population of Californians. However, the limited demographic data that does exist shows that participants in the solar initiative’s General Market Program tend to be largely older, wealthier, and have received more education than most California homeowners. . . With respect to the decal program’s capacity to appeal to a diverse population, a recent consumer survey for a related incentive program for low-emission vehicles found that, although the ages of respondents are somewhat evenly distributed, most respondents were male and earned $100,000 or more per year.

The Master Plan for Higher Education in California, produced in 1960, was a visionary document for its time, but must be updated to reflect the changed economic, demographic and financial environment of the current century. California’s economic future will depend on the outcome.

A comprehensive analysis of the Golden State’s cap-and-trade program.

In this first year, the SVCIP finds that highly productive, talented workers are the undisputed foundation of the region’s strength in innovation and in attracting businesses, despite the region’s high costs. It then identifies the critical public policy issues that need to be addressed to develop, attract and retain talent for the region’s continued success. Those issues include immigration, STEM and early education, housing and transportation. R&D funding, tax policies and the cost of doing business also emerge as issues of strategic concern for the region.

The growing skills gap is one of the most persistent challenges a”ecting thriving and lagging state economies—the disparity between the skills companies need to drive growth and innovation versus the skills that actually exist within their organizations and in the labor market. This disconnect, expected to grow substantially as the boomer generation retires, causes workers and companies to miss out on realizing their full potential. A sizable skills gap impacts virtually every aspect of the economy, thereby affecting our national competitiveness and, in turn, causing the economy to fall short of its potential.

In the Governor’s 2015-16 budget proposal, the administration raises its revenue estimates, and this results in a multibillion-dollar influx of new funds for schools and community colleges under the Proposition 98 minimum funding guarantee. The Governor’s plan identifies cost pressures and budget risks in health and human services programs, and new program commitments outside of Proposition 98 are limited. The Governor’s proposal to pay off the state’s retiree health liabilities over the next few decades would, if funded, address the last of state government’s large unaddressed liabilities. We conclude the state likely will collect more tax revenue in 2014-15 than the administration now estimates. Barring a sustained stock market drop, an additional 2014-15 revenue gain of $1 billion to $2 billion seems likely in addition to the Governor’s budget projection. Even bigger gains of a few billion dollars more are possible in 2014-15. These additional 2014-15 revenues will go largely or entirely to schools and community colleges and could result in a few billion dollars of higher ongoing state payments to schools. Whether tax revenues grow further, stagnate, or, in the worst case, decline in 2015-16 will depend in large part on trends in volatile capital gains and business income.

The past thirty years have seen a dramatic decline in the rate of income convergence across states and in population flows to wealthy places. These changes coincide with (1) an increase in housing prices in productive areas, (2) a divergence in the skill-specific returns to living in those places, and (3) a redirection of unskilled migration away from productive places. . . Income convergence continues in less-regulated places, while it has mostly stopped in places with more regulation.

In June 2014, the Legislature directed the LAO to prepare a report analyzing the costs, benefits, and trade-offs of various options for a state earned income tax credit (EITC) that would supplement the federal credit. This report discusses considerations for adopting a state EITC and provides three options for the Legislature’s consideration.

The report also points out that the EU’s climate policies were enacted based on the assumption that the rest of the world would soon follow suit. That hasn’t happened, and despite some fleeting green optimism following the joint emissions agreements from the U.S. and China last month, the Global Climate Treaty is still dead in the water. The EU may be a first mover in this arena, but it’s suffering the costs, not reaping the benefits, of blazing this trail. By going it alone, the bloc is putting itself at a competitive disadvantage with regard to the rest of the world, as the cost of electricity continues to rise and turn the screws on households and businesses alike.

Income inequality is in the headlines these days, and attention to this huge and growing problem is welcome. But to focus on inequality in income alone is to take a narrow view of the problem and what’s at stake. Mutually reinforcing inequalities in health, education, environment, neighborhood conditions, wealth, and political power have created an opportunity divide that higher wages alone cannot bridge.

In 2013, Hispanics had an estimated after-tax income of more than $605 billion. That figure is equivalent to almost one out of every 10 dollars of disposable income held in the United States that year. Foreign-born Hispanic households made up a sizeable portion of that figure: We estimate their spending power totaled $287 billion that year.

A new analysis from the California Budget Project (CBP) looks at how California could create its own state EITC and shows that a refundable state credit could provide an economic boost for more than 3 million households. In addition, a state EITC would help rebalance California’s tax system, under which low-income families currently pay an outsize share of their incomes in state and local taxes, and would also strengthen our state’s social safety net.

In January 2014, there were nearly 60,000 jobs in Bay Area’s “core” clean economy. These core jobs were in a range of businesses that provide the products and services that allow the entire economy to transition away from fossil fuels and improve efficiencies in the use of natural resources.

Most published research focuses on tax incentives at the state level, where the largest packages are typically awarded. A new nationwide survey by the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), though, provides a detailed portrait of how local governments use business incentives and employ accountability measures.

The final AMP report makes recommendations addressing three key pillars that support American manufacturing: 1) enabling innovation, 2) securing the talent pipeline, and 3) improving the business climate.