• Bio:

    Howard Chernick is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is a research affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the Univ. of Wisconsin, a board member of Citizens for Tax Justice, and a past member of the board of the National Tax Association. Research interests include fiscal federalism, urban public finance, anti-poverty policy, and tobacco taxation. He is the editor of “Resilient City,” a book published by the Russell Sage Foundation in 2005 assessing the economic costs of the 9/11 attacks on New York City. In addition to cities in the United States, including his hometown of NYC, Professor Chernick has studied the finances of cities around the world, including Montreal, Stockholm, and Kolkata, India.

     

  • Recent Publications:

    Selected research includes “Fiscal Capacity in New York: the City versus the Region,” Proceedings of the National Tax Association Spring Symposium, 1998.

    “The Commuter Tax and the Fiscal Cost of Commuters in New York City,” State Tax Notes  (2002).  (with Olesya Tkacheva).  “Fiscal equalisation between Swedish municipalities”, in Fiscal Federalism in Unitary States, Kluwer 2004. Resilient City: The Economic Impact of the 9/11 Attack on NYC, Russell Sage Foundation, 2005 (editor); Fiscal Effects of Block Grants for the Needy: An Interpretation of the Evidence, International Tax and Public Finance, 1998; Local Public Finance: Issues for Metropolitan Regions, in Competitive Cities in the Global Economy, OECD, 2006. (with A. Reschovsky); “Redistribution at the State and Local Level: Consequences for Growth., Public Finance Review, 2010. “Revenue Diversification and the Financing of Large American Central Cities”, Public Finance and Management 11.2 (2011) 138-159. (with Andrew Reschovsky and Adam Langley)  “The Impact of the Great Recession and the Housing Crisis  on the Financing of America’s Largest Cities.” Regional Science and Urban Economics 41 (2011) 372-381. (with A. Reschovsky and A. Langley); “Using Littered Pack Data to Estimate Cigarette Tax Avoidance in New York City”, forthcoming, National Tax Journal, September, 2013. (with David Merriman); ”The U.S. Grant System”. In Stephen Payson, Ed.  Public Economics: The Government’s Role in American Economics. Westport, Ct: Praeger Publishers, forthcoming.

     

     

  • Current Projects:

    Howard Chernick is actively involved in public policy in New York. He has testified before several NYC tax commissions, and served as a consultant to the City of New York Independent Budget Office, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and the Campaign for Fiscal Equity.

  • Research Areas: Economic Policy, Urban Policy