Nguyen Signs Contract with Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

Body

Phuong Nguyen, an assistant professor with the School of Urban and Regional Planning and social science policy program researcher, has signed a contract with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy to write a research paper on the effects of tax increment financing (TIF) on educational expenditures in Iowa. Once his paper is complete, he will present its findings at "The Property Tax and Financing of K-12 Education" conference on October 28, 2013 in Cambridge, Mass.

Nguyen was chosen to write this paper after he submitted a research proposal to the Institute. Submissions were judged according to three criteria: 1) relevance to the conference topic of the property tax and financing of K-12 education; 2) potential impact of the paper results; and 3) demonstrated ability of the applicant to complete the proposed paper successfully. Of those submitted, the Institute only invited seven papers to present.

"My paper will provide empirical evidence on whether tax increment financing has a negative impact on educational expenditures or not," says Nguyen. "This is an important policy question given the recent controversy as to how TIF has been used in Iowa."

The Iowa Fiscal Partnership's Peter Fisher completed a report in 2011 which examined TIF usage in Johnson County. The follow-up report in 2012 helped to keep the controversy of TIF in the Iowa school system alive. "These two reports claim that school districts are negatively affected," says Nguyen. "[I] will provide evidence using much more rigorous econometric methods to get at the root of this question."

Nguyen and his TIF research was featured in an IowaNow article, which you can read here