EQUITY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF POSSIBLE CO2 TREATY PROPOSALS

The Montreal Protocol on chlorofluorocarbon control established an important precedent for global environmental treaties that include both developing countries and industrial countries. This paper evaluates seven possible treaty proposals to control carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. Growth-rate control proposals fail on effectiveness of control or on equity differences between developing countries and industrial countries. Complex proposals link policies in population growth, economic development, world energy taxation, and forestation. These complex proposals, which appear to be both effective and equitable, can defer or avoid CO2 doubling.     

The effect of capital gains taxation on small business transfers and start-ups

This paper studies the effect of capital gains taxation on small business transfers and business start-ups. We consider a model in which agents have different abilities to manage businesses and derive an agent's optimal choices as an owner or non-owner of a small business. Agents' optimal choices depend on their abilities. We also find that capital gains taxation has a negative effect on small business transfers but can encourage small business start-ups.     

Capitalism and democracy in the 21st century: a Kaleckian interpretation of a Schumpeterian problem

The paper reinterprets Schumpeter's views on the dynamic effects of taxation, as originally expressed in Crisis of the Tax State, from a Kaleckian perspective. In light of Schumpeter's rejection of Keynesian and Marshallian approaches to taxation, the paper argues that a recently developed Kaleckian approach provides an appropriate basis from which to analyse the effects on the business cycle of balanced changes in the structure of taxation. It is shown that, under certain shifting assumptions, increases in the taxation of wages or profits will stimulate investment and attenuate the amplitude of the business cycle. Ultimately, the shifting of taxes reduces to a conflict over income shares. The changing distribution of income in the United Kingdom in recent years suggests that investment is likely to remain sluggish unless there is a significant reversal of income shares. This may give rise to increasing economic and political tensions into the 21st century.     

Tax Competition,Investment Irreversibility and the Provision of Public Goods

This article studies the effects of tax competition on the provision of public goods under business risk and partial irreversibility of investment. As will be shown, the provision of public goods changes over time and also depends on the business cycle. In particular, under source‐based taxation, in the short term, public goods can be optimally provided during a downturn. The converse is true during a recovery: in this case, they are underprovided. In the long term, however, tax competition does not affect capital accumulation. This means that the provision of public goods is unaffected by taxation.     

中国纳税服务基本理念缺失的原因分析

纳税服务理念的缺失具有深厚的历史背景:政府的职能定位、个体功利不被重视、企业的经济地位不独立以及纳税人权利与义务的不对等,对纳税服务理念影响深远。随着社会主义市场经济体制的建立和完善,应逐步培养公民的权利意识和政府的责任意识,更新为纳税人服务的理念,并在制度操作层面加以完善,是确立纳税服务理念、促进征管质量和效率提高的客观要求。     

A Distortive Wage Tax and a Countervailing Commuting Subsidy

Within a second-best duocentric urban economics framework where labor income taxation distorts workplace choices on account of commuting costs, this paper studies a commuting subsidy, which distorts land use. It is shown that a commuting subsidy increases welfare if and only if it shifts labor supply from less to more productive business districts.     

Tax Evasion, Tax Competition and the Gains From Nondiscrimination: the Case of Interest Taxation in Europe

This paper uses a game–theoretic approach to analyse the taxation of interest income in Europe in the presence of tax evasion. The model allows us to assess the success of various reform proposals. We argue that the tax treatment of nonresidents' interest income plays a crucial role. When decisions on discrimination and on withholding tax rates are made non-cooperatively, the outcome is similar to a prisoners' dilemma. All countries discriminate, but in equilibrium internationally mobile portfolio capital evades taxation successfully. In contrast, if all governments did not discriminate, tax competition leads to less tax evasion.     

Is There a Win–Win Situation in Household Energy Policy?

To achieve environmental goals, most governments aim to reduce consumption of the most polluting energy goods by taxation. Often, the authorities not only aim to change the consumption of the regulated good by the taxation, but also to change the consumption of close substitutes (hereafter referred to as win–win effects). The size of the win–win effects depend not only on how close substitutes the goods are, but also on the price sensitivity of the taxed good and on the budget effects of the regulation. We use a conditional demand model to decompose the cross-price effect to discuss which criteria that must be fulfilled in order for substantial win–win effects to occur, using Norwegian stationary energy consumption as an empirical example.     

Does taxation have real effects on agricultural output? Theory and empirical evidence from China

China has a long history of taxing agriculture, with special levies on output. Whether farm households are taxed on a lump-sum basis or as a proportion of output is an important issue. This paper develops a theoretical model to understand better the effects of the lump-sum and proportional taxation on agricultural output. It then empirically investigates the predictions using tax and output data on Chinese agriculture. The theoretical model predicts that lump-sum taxation affects only consumption, while proportional taxation simultaneously affects consumption, capital inputs and final output. Although the main tax policy targeted output, our results suggest that taxation had only a modest impact on output since it was effectively applied as lump sum taxation brought about by localized levies and taxes.     

TO TAX OR NOT TO TAX? THE CASE OF ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

Despite the intensifying debate over the taxation of Internet commerce, the relevant issues have not been given a systematic treatment in the context of the literature on optimal taxation. This article presents such an analysis and investigates separately the taxation of business purchases of intermediate goods, the taxation of consumer purchases of final goods and services, and the various issues of administration and compliance costs as they apply to the development of E-commerce. The authors conclude that generally the optimal tax literature cannot be used in support of a blanket tax exemption for Internet purchases. Certain conditions could lead to the optimality of an exemption, but those conditions are not likely to be met in practice.     

我国商业方法专利性之研究

通过狭义的定义把这个概念引入到我们要讨论的专利法范畴。同时厘清商业方法专利与其他相关概念的关系，在精确定义的同时勾勒出所讨论的可专利性客体的轮廓。我国现行法律给商业方法可专利性留下的空间，但应有所限制地肯定其可专利性的条件，对商业方法进行可专利性主题判断的时候，应保证其技术性条件。     

Business Cycle Comovement and Labor Market Institutions: An Empirical Investigation

This paper examines the empirical link between labor market institutions and international business cycle synchronization. Using a data panel of 20 OECD countries over the 1964–2003 period, we evaluate how cross‐country labor market heterogeneity affects business cycle comovement. Our estimation strategy controls for a large set of possible factors influencing cross‐country GDP correlation, which allows a comparison of our results with those found in previous studies. We find that bilateral trade, trade similarity, monetary and fiscal convergence, as well as EMU membership lead to more synchronized cycles. Our results show that labor market regulations affect the extent of business cycle synchronization. Disparities in employment protection laws and direct taxation tend to lower international comovement while divergence in union density, unemployment benefits, and indirect taxation enhance cross‐country correlations. The level of labor market regulations also matters. Heavier employment taxes are found to raise GDP comovement.     

A natural experiment for identifying the impact of ‘natural’ trade barriers on exports

The paper investigates the relative importance of trade policy and ‘natural’ sources of export taxation in Malawi, a landlocked African economy. These sources of export taxation are in turn used to explore how export supply would respond to trade liberalisation as opposed to measures which lower other international trade costs. The findings indicate that trade policy barriers are now only a limited source of ‘true’ export taxation and that trade policy reform needs to be complemented with reforms to reduce international trade, including transport, costs.     

Tax policy and aggregate stability in an overlapping generations model

In the context of a two-period non-monetary overlapping generations model with Cobb–Douglas preference and technological specifications, this paper explores the theoretical as well as quantitative interrelations between equilibrium (in)determinacy versus (i) a progressive tax schedule on wage income and (ii) a balanced-budget rule with endogenous labour taxation. In sharp contrast to previous studies on a one-sector representative-agent macroeconomy, we find that both fiscal formulations can possibly operate as stabilizing instruments against cyclical fluctuations driven by agents' self-fulfilling beliefs. The key policy implication of our no-indeterminacy result is that depending on what is the underlying analytical environment, countercyclical income taxation may stabilize or destabilize the business cycle.     

台湾创业投资税收政策及其启示

台湾地区的创业投资是推动科技产业发展的重要力量,目前其活跃程度仅次于美国排名全球第二.在创投业发展的不同阶段,台湾政府主要采用对创投公司股东提供投资税收抵减优惠政策、健全创投业筹资、投资范围及退出渠道建设等方法,来引导创投业的发展.从台湾的经验中我们可以看出税收政策支持创业投资事业的必要性、有效性.相比而言,大陆地区针对创业投资行业的税收政策存在缺位现象.借鉴台湾经验,可以对创业投资采取阶段性倾斜政策.     

Foreign direct investment in OECD countries: a special focus in the case of Greece

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is considered as an important instrument for economic development all over the world. The aim of this paper is to examine the FDI inflows determinants for 24 OECD countries. To this end we employ annual data from 1980 to 2012 for a series of potential FDI determinants that have been identified as the most important by the relevant literature. Our empirical strategy employs both the standard fixed effects panel as well as a dynamic panel approach. The empirical findings highlight the importance of market size, trade openness, unit labor cost, schooling, taxation, gross capital formation, institutional variables, and ROA/ROE as significant FDI determinants. In the case of the dynamic panel model those FDI inflows determinants are not uniform for all country groups. Additionally, the results indicate that corporate tax rates clearly affect FDI attractiveness. This finding is robust when testing different countries subgroups. The present study has important policy implications indicating the factors that host economies should place emphasis on in order to attract FDI inflows. Policy makers should not only pay attention to the corporate tax rate level but they should also design a simple, stable and transparent taxation system that minimizes the relevant business risk.     

REVENUE, PROGRESSIVITY, AND THE FLAT TAX

This paper uses detailed household data to analyze revenue potential and progressivity under two popular "flat tax" proposals. The results show that the Hall and Rabushka version of the flat tax would generate $626 billion in revenue in 1993 while the more generous plan of Armey and Shelby would produce only $538 billion. Integrating the individual tax with the business tax indicates that both proposals are progressive. However, there is a substantial shift of the tax burden from the highest income classes to the middle classes in comparison to the current system.     

"营改增"对制造业企业自主创新的影响——兼议制造业企业的技术引进

"营改增"政策打通了增值税抵扣链条,不仅会对企业税负产生影响,而且会改变企业的行为.创新是国家经济增长的关键,"营改增"影响企业创新行为的实证研究尚属空白.基于此,文章以2008?2013年制造业上市公司为样本,采用双重差分法研究了"营改增"政策对中国制造业企业自主创新的影响及其作用机制.研究表明,"营改增"政策可以通过促进专业化分工显著地降低制造业企业以专利为表征的自主创新意愿.进一步分析发现,自主创新意愿的降低并没有对制造业企业的盈利能力和企业价值造成影响;"营改增"在降低企业自主创新意愿的同时提高了企业的技术引进水平.文章的研究弥补了"营改增"影响企业自主创新的研究空白,为"营改增"政策效应的研究提供了新的视角,同时对于制造业企业创新模式的选择及政府产业政策的制定具有重要的政策含义.     

税制结构与商业银行信贷行为

为了考察税收对银行行为的影响,我们假设商业银行以利润最大化为其经营目标,在现行利率管制条件下,商业银行的选择变量就是其存贷款量.研究结果表明,营业税的开征会影响商业银行最优贷款发放量,对银行信贷行为具有扭曲作用;而所得税对最优存贷款量没有影响,因此,与营业税相比,所得税具有中性税收的优点.     

内、外资企业所得税合并中的几个理论问题探讨

中国正经历着新一轮的税制改革,而内、外资企业所得税的合并成为人们关注的焦点问题。从纳税人、税率、税前扣除和税收优惠等几个基本理论问题的界定,分析内、外资企业所得税存在的差异以及合并中存在的问题,进而为内、外资企业所得税的合并提供一个理论框架。