Economy

Notices are going out in the mail to an estimated 37,000 Tennessee borrowers who may be eligible for payment under a $25 billion national mortgage foreclosure settlement. Eligible borrowers will be receiving claim forms in the mail this month and Attorney General Bob Cooper of Tennessee urged residents to complete the forms and return them by the January 18, 2013 deadline.

Kentucky’s Blue Ribbon Tax Commission has spent months learning how the state’s tax system works, and is now beginning to hammer out proposals to reform the state’s tax code. The commission met again this week  in Frankfort to hear some final reports from the Beshear administration on how Kentucky’s current revenue systems work.

“The Cost of Crime,” a new study by a Centre College professor, quantifies the burden of crime by estimating the annual cost of crime in the United States. Many studies measure crime by looking at raw numbers of thefts, murders and other criminal activities. David A. Anderson, Centre College’s Paul G. Blazer Professor of Economics, warns that these numbers can be misleading, especially when the number of crimes goes in one direction while the severity of crimes goes in the other.