RESEARCH PAPERS ARE PRELIMINARY MATERIALS CIRCULATED TO STIMULATE DISCUSSION AND CRITICAL COMMENT. THE VIEWS EXPRESSED ARE THOSE OF THE INDIVIDUAL AUTHORS. WHILE RESEARCH PAPERS BENEFIT FROM ACTIVE UHERO DISCUSSION, THEY HAVE NOT UNDERGONE FORMAL ACADEMIC PEER REVIEW.
Many states in the U.S. give unrestricted financial support to their local governments. The reasons some state governments provide aid and others do not, and why a particular mode of revenue sharing is adopted remain unclear. This paper examines Hawaii’s recent effort at developing a model to allocate the state’s transient accommodation tax revenues between the State and the county governments. The paper documents the process and explains the rationale behind the model.