GORDON BROWN COUNTS DEAD CHILDREN: THE TRUE IMPACT OF INHERITANCE TAX

In the Budget and the supporting documents Gordon Brown and the Treasury reported that only 6% of estates pay Inheritance Tax and that the tax is a fair and targeted system. This article shows that for several reasons the tax affects far more than 6% of the community, is iniquitous and poorly targeted.     

THE SMITH–HAYEK ECONOMIST: FROM CHARACTER TO IDENTITY

It would be beneficial for economists who follow in the tradition of Smith and Hayek to establish an identity whilst accentuating heterogeneity. Existing labels do not really adequately describe the Smith–Hayek character.     

TAX REVENUE-FINANCED PUBLIC ABATEMENT AND WELFARE: A CONSUMPTION TAX CASE

This paper develops a model of public abatement financed either by a pollution tax or by a consumption tax. It shows that consumption tax revenue-financed public abatement raises welfare more than pollution tax revenue-financed public abatement does when the pollution tax rate rises. This result is worthwhile for environmental protection policy makers when they are determining the revenue source of public abatement.     

MARGINAL COMMODITY TAX REFORMS: A SURVEY

Abstract.  As noted 30 years ago by Martin Feldstein, optimal taxes may be useless for practical purposes and emphasis should instead be placed on the possibility of enhancing welfare by reforming existing tax rates. In this perspective, marginal commodity tax reforms are gaining increasing attention due to political and economic constraints on large reforms of direct (or indirect) taxation. In this paper, we summarize the main features and results of the literature on marginal commodity tax reforms pioneered by Ahmad and Stern, further developed by Yitzhaki and Thirsk and recently reinterpreted by Makdissi and Wodon. We establish new links to other fields of research, namely the literature on the use of equivalence scales and on poverty measurement. We also critically examine some issues associated with the implementation of marginal tax reforms with special reference to the calculation of welfare weights and revenue effects. Finally, we suggest directions for future research on poverty-reducing commodity tax reforms.     

BRITISH EUROSCEPTICISM – A VIEW FROM A CLASSICAL LIBERAL IN NEW EUROPE

This article argues that the classical liberal idea of federalism has been hijacked by socialists in Europe. At the same time, it is argued that classical liberals should not become Eurosceptics.     

FROM APATHY TO ALACRITY: MANAGERS AND NEW TECHNOLOGY IN PROVINCIAL NEWSPAPERS

The article explores why provincial newspaper managers have shifted from a position of reluctance and uncertainty about new technology to enthusiasm and zeal for the process and product development opportunities it offers. the transformation is assessed in terms of changes in the industrial relations context, market conditions and technological developments between the late 1970s and early 1990s. This can be characterized as moving from reactive management to proactive management, and the article examines how the latter reflects the development of new business opportunities through application of new technology to the information-gathering process, the pre-press production process and the product. Data are drawn from case study interviews and trade/professional publications. The analysis suggests that there is evidence of three prime managerial objectives/motives for introducing new technology: cost, control and market. Each of these were of varying importance for managers at different times, and were affected by technological uncertainty and ignorance. Attitudes transformed because of the changing context and the pursuit of functional interest, with the result that newspaper managers are now in a better position to exploit new technology for competitive advantage.     

PUBLIC R&D POLICIES AND PRIVATE R&D INVESTMENT: A SURVEY OF THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

The importance of R&D investment in explaining economic growth is well documented in the literature. Policies by modern governments increasingly recognise the benefits of supporting R&D investment. Government funding has, however, become an increasingly scarce resource in times of financial crisis and economic austerity. Hence, it is important that available funds are used and targeted effectively. This paper offers the first systematic review and critical discussion of what the R&D literature has to say currently about the effectiveness of major public R&D policies in increasing private R&D investment. Public policies are considered within three categories, R&D tax credits and direct subsidies, support of the university research system and the formation of high‐skilled human capital, and support of formal R&D cooperations across a variety of institutions. Crucially, the large body of more recent literature observes a shift away from the earlier findings that public subsidies often crowd‐out private R&D to finding that subsidies typically stimulate private R&D. Tax credits are also much more unanimously than previously found to have positive effects. University research, high‐skilled human capital, and R&D cooperation also typically increase private R&D. Recent work indicates that accounting for non‐linearities is one area of research that may refine existing results.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SUPERVISION AND PAY: EVIDENCE FROM THE BRITISH NEW EARNINGS SURVEY†

ABSTRACTS This paper looks at the relationship between supervision and pay using British data, that refer to a different institutional context. The analysis is based on information provided by the British New Earnings Survery over the period 1975–1982. The empirical investigation reveals that the relationship between supervision and pay is likely to be affected in a significant way not only by the estimation technique, as stressed by the existing literature, but also by errors in the measurement of the main variables.     

THE LONG-TERM ECONOMIC GAIN FROM NEW MODELS OF HEALTHCARE PROVISION: THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES

The case for competition in healthcare has become much stronqer. Health economists have failed to notice the erosion of the old arguments for state monopoly.     

THE NEW PALGRAVE: A DICTIONARY OF ECONOMICS

Books reviewed in this article:
John Eatwell, Murray Milgate and Peter Newman (editors) 1987 The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics     

NONLINEAR GROWTH EFFECTS OF TAXATION: A SEMI‐PARAMETRIC APPROACH USING AVERAGE MARGINAL TAX RATES

One of the major challenges of empirical tax research is the identification and calculation of appropriate tax data. While there is consensus that average marginal tax rates are most suitable for studying the effects of tax policy on economic growth, because of data limitations the calculation of marginal tax rates has been limited to the USA and the UK. This paper provides calculations of average marginal tax rates for the four Scandinavian countries using the methodologies of Seater (1982, 1985) and Barro and Sahasakul (1983, 1986). Then, by pooling the newly calculated tax rates for the Scandinavian countries with the data for the USA and the UK, we investigate the effects of tax policy shocks on the per capita GDP growth rate. Our results suggest that an increase in average marginal tax rates has a negative impact on economic growth. Employing additive mixed panel models with penalized splines as estimation approach, we show that changes in tax rates have nonlinear effects. Increasing average marginal tax rates turn out to be the most distorting at relatively moderate tax rates. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A BRAVE EXPERIMENT: KOREA'S RECENT LAND POLICY REFORM AND THE ROLE OF THE LAND HOLDING TAX

Korea's land policy has evolved around the presumption that market intervention is necessary to combat rising prices and speculation. In this paper it is argued, however, that the essence of the land problem is a distributional issue, and that the efforts to selectively punish speculators have had detrimental consequences. Past and present land policy is evaluated from this perspective, and a current policy issue, increasing land holding taxes, is examined. Notwithstanding the theoretical effect of a higher land holding tax, even a radical increase of the tax will not be able to stabilize land prices as long as urban land remains scarce. The government should accelerate deregulation in land use and development.     

COPYRIGHT AND ARTISTS: A VIEW FROM CULTURAL ECONOMICS

Abstract.  Most of the standard economic literature on copyright ignores a number of aspects that have considerable significance for cultural production and for artists, the primary creators of copyright works, the supply of which copyright is supposed to stimulate. Specifically, there is little mention in that literature of moral rights, no distinction is made between copyright for authors and neighbouring rights for performers, the distributional effects of copyright are barely referred to, and the question of how much artists earn from copyright is ignored. In this article, I survey work that relates copyright and cultural economics showing that cultural economics offers another view to the 'standard' economics of copyright. Moreover, the case for government intervention in the arts and heritage made by cultural economists has resonance for the economic rationale of copyright.     

张裕:一个从优秀到卓越的品牌

在北京,十届全国人大代表、张裕公司党委书记兼董事长孙利强看上去春风满面地向记者介绍了张裕如何从优秀到卓越的历程。百年传奇:一个企业带动一个行业对整个中国葡萄酒业而言,应该说张裕一个企业的发展带动了整个行业的发展。从历史的角度看,成立于1892年的张裕公司在三方面对中国葡萄酒的发展居功甚伟:一是引进西方的先进技术,开创中国工业化酿造葡萄酒之先河,尤其是张裕对中西技术的合璧。二是对西方葡萄品种的引进和改良,今天已成为中国葡萄酒发展最基础的部分。三是张裕对葡萄酒人才的培养,这些人才成为中国葡萄酒业的脊梁。张裕真正…     

AGRICULTURAL POLICY AS A SOCIAL ENGINEERING TOOL: A NEW JERSEY CASE STUDY

This study uses logistic regression to examine the preferences for social engineering policies in the agricultural sector in a New Jersey case study. It finds that farm operators are unlikely to support a policy allowing countries to restrict trade to pursue domestic economic and social policy goals if the policies affect international trade. In particular, it suggests that farm operators with annual gross sales including government payments between $500 000 and $999 999 are 80 percent less likely to indicate such a preference. Farm operators with advanced degrees, some college education, and a high school diploma are also unlikely to indicate such a preference. In contrast, farm operators who receive no income from farming or ranching and those who receive a percentage of family income from farming or ranching indicate that countries should be allowed to restrict trade to pursue domestic economic and social policy goals even if the policies affect international trade.     

惊险的一跃：从民族企业到全球性企业

2003年年底,张瑞敏在接受媒体采访的时候,曾忧心忡忡地谈道,如果海尔没有办法做成全球性企业,就只能在市场竞争中输给跨国公司.最让他担心的不是那些具有高科技的公司,也不是那些老牌的制造企业,而是一个能够把触角伸到世界每一个角落的销售企业:沃尔玛.