A Note on the Tax Treatment of Private Pensions and Individual Savings Accounts

The UK government is planning to introduce stakeholder pensions from April 2001 as an alternative to existing personal pensions for people on moderate earnings. But stakeholder pensions are only one way to save for retirement; the new tax‐free Individual Savings Account (ISA) is another. This note compares the tax treatments of pensions and ISAs and assesses the conditions under which the tax treatment of private pensions is more generous than that of an ISA to a basicrate taxpayer – the typical target for stakeholder pensions. The abolition of dividend tax credits paid to pension funds in July 1997 reduced the relatively tax‐favoured position of pensions, but the tax‐free lump sum means that private pensions continue to be a tax‐favoured form of saving at most reasonable rates of return. We show that employer contributions to private pensions are particularly tax‐favoured.     

Globalization, Asymmetric Tax Competition, and Fiscal Equalization

Trade integration and the increasing mobility of firms have raised the need for international coordination in corporate tax. In this paper, we study the ability of fiscal equalization to avoid the misallocation of capital across asymmetric countries arising from tax competition. Such a reform respects the principle according to which the tax decision is entirely left up to the nation and links nations engaged in strategic tax policy by transfers. We use a model of trade and location where firms produce under imperfect competition. Our analysis suggests that falling trade costs increase the distortion created by tax competition in the international allocation of production. However, we show that fiscal equalization based on differences in tax revenues or tax base can implement a more efficient tax wedge and spatial allocation of the tax base.     

The Social Cost of Rent Seeking by Labor Unions in the United States

The conventional welfare loss to trade unions and collective bargaining has been put at some fraction of 1.0 percent. Added to this should be the costs of resources deployed by the parties as they compete for monopoly gains. These additional social costs turn out to be on the same order as the conventional welfare loss. The analysis finds in passing that the investment by union members in paying dues yields very handsome dividends.     

A COMMENT ON TWO SIMPLE DECISION RULES IN CAPITAL RATIONING

The elegant solution of the capital rationing problem through linear or integer programing is of limited use in practical situations due to strong requirements of available information. The purpose of the article is to give conditions under which two simpler decision rules, present value per dollar outlay and internal rate of return, will lead to essentially the same solution as the linear programming approach. The conditions are given in terms of the shadow discount rates of the linear programing solution.
L'elégénte solution apportée au problème de rationement du capital au moyen de la programmation linèire, a une application limitée dans des situations réelles étant donné les stricts besoins d'informations dont il faudrait disposer. Dans cet article, on donne les conditions ous lesquelles deux principes simples de décision (la valeur actuelle et "Internal rate of return") permettraient d'aboutir au même résultat que celui de la méthode linéaire de progammation. Les conditions sont données au moyen de taux d'escompte correspondants appropriés a la solution fournie par la progarnation linéaire.
Die elegante Lösung des Investitionsplans bei beschränkten Finanzierungsmitteln durch lineare oder ganzzahlige Programierung ist von begrenztem Nutzen in der Praxis, da die nötigen Informationen nicht zure Verfüngung stehen. Der Zweck des Beitrages ist eine Erleuterung der Bedingungen, worin zwei einfachere Entscheidungsregeln, Kapitalwert pro Dollar des Anschaffungspreises und interner Zinfuss, grundsätzlich zur selben Lösung als die lineare Programierung führt. Die Bedingungen werden als Schattendiskontierungsätze der Lgsung eines linearen Programs dargestellt.     

WIFE'S EMPLOYMENT—ITS INFLUENCE ON MAJOR FAMILY EXPENDITURES

This study was undertaken to examine the influence of wife's employment on major family expenditures. Tobit analysis of data from the 1972–73 Consumer Expenditure Surveys found no relationship between wife's employment and outlays on twelve categories of expenditures. Family income had the greatest overall influence on the expenditure categories examined. Therefore, it appears that the absolute amount of income was more important than its sources in determining expenditures.