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.     

TAX AND THE DIVISION OF LABOUR

All taxes drive a wedge between the prices consumers pay and prices producers receive, thus promoting inefficient 'do-it-yourself'(DIY) work - not just at home but also in the workplace.     

中国人民大学土地政策与制度研究中心

中国人民大学土地政策与制度研究中心经中国人民大学批准成立,是一个常设、开放、非赢利的研究机构,凝聚了中国人民大学公共管理、土地管理、工商管理、法学、经济学、金融学和国内外其他著名大学相关专业领域、政府相关管理部门和地产界中一批满怀社会责任感并愿意为我国土地管理事业、城市经济和城乡统筹发展贡献智慧的有识之士。研究中心设立的愿景是通过搭建一个常设的交流、沟通和互动平台,促成政府、学术界、产业界在土地及相关领域的重大问题、政策和制度研究上,形成理性沟通和良好互动关系,平等、冷静、智慧地对话,交换观点,凝聚智慧,熔铸思想,共同探求中国经济社会发展过程中出现的各种重要的土地问题的治理之策,共同研究中国土地政策制度优化及设计之道,共同关注中国城市化进程和城乡统筹发展,共同致力于中国经济社会的可持续和科学发展。     

THE ECONOMICS OF HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK: AN INTERDICIPLINARY REVIEW OF THE THEORY AND POLICY

Abstract This paper engages in an interdisciplinary survey of the current state of knowledge related to the theory, determinants and consequences of occupational safety and health (OSH). It first describes the fundamental theoretical construct of compensating wage differentials, which is used by economists to understand the optimal provision of OSH in a perfectly competitive labour market. The plethora of incentives faced by workers and firms in job and insurance markets that determine the ultimate level of OSH are discussed in detail. The extensive empirical evidence from the hedonic wage and stated choice approaches used to assess the value of OSH is reviewed. The causes of inefficiency and inequity in the market for OSH, such as externalities, moral hazard in compensation insurance, systematic biases in individual risk perception/well‐being and labour market segregation are subsequently examined. The implications of government intervention and regulation for tackling the aforementioned inefficiencies in OSH are then considered. Finally, the survey identifies areas of future research interests and suggests indicators and priorities for policy initiatives that can improve the health and safety of workers in modern job markets.     

POLITICAL PROCESS AND THE FORMATION OF ECONOMIC POLICY

Institutional economics has some useful things to say about government policy-forming processes. It focuses attention on the structural components of government institutions which shape the direction of policy formation and its delivery. In this article, the author discusses how institutional models of government decision-making may be adapted to parliamentary systems of government. This approach has some merit because it rescues analysis of government processes from models based on the US constitutional system.     

THE FAILURE OF THE POLL TAX AND CLASSICAL LIBERAL POLITICAL ECONOMY: LESSONS FOR THE FUTURE

The failure of the Poll Tax has been claimed to be an indictment of the principles of classical liberal political economy that it was intended to apply to local government finance. This article argues that, on the contrary, the failure of the Poll Tax was entirely predictable from the perspective of classical liberal political economy, and, in particular, public choice economics, because it involved a politically impossible reassignment of the local tax burden, presented local electors with an insurmountable collective action problem and ignored the 'vote motive' underlying the actions of national politicians held accountable for the new tax. Finally, the article proposes some lessons for the future of local government reform from the experience of the Poll Tax.     

LIFE-CYCLE ANALYSIS AND POLICY OPTIONS: THE CASE OF THE EUROPEAN PULP AND PAPER INDUSTRY

As part of the shift in emphasis in environmental policy from clean-up to avoidance, environmental policy instruments that specify preferred technological directions for an industry are increasingly being used. Take-back requirements and mandatory recycling are cases in point. These directly affect the mix of materials and the technologies used by an industry. These effects reverberate throughout the industry and influence market conditions for everyone both up- and downstream in the supplier/client chains. As these chains frequently cross international frontiers, environmental policy-making is becoming increasingly significant in influencing competitive structures and international trade patterns. Concerns are that policy-making may lock in inappropriate technologies and that the policy process may be manipulated for industrial or trading advantage. Using fibre recycling in the European pulp and paper sector as a case study, it is shown how these concerns are manifest and also that materials accounting and operational research techniques exist to mitigate them. It is concluded that there is a need to establish agreed environmental impact evaluation methodologies to provide guidance on the robustness of policy-making and a basis for consistent, predictable and defensible policy-making.     

THE PRIVATE FINANCING OF NHS HOSPITALS: POLITICS, POLICY AND PRACTICE

This article outlines and critiques the main fiscal and economic rationales for the Private Finance Initiative and examines the impact of the policy on the long-term financial viability of NHS trusts. It concludes that the PFI funding of capital investment is highly problematic. Its high costs can have a negative impact on the finances of health systems.     

CHILDREN, FAMILIES AND THE FAILURE OF UK ANTI-POVERTY POLICY

Relative child poverty is often associated with single parenthood. In fact, children of single parents have always constituted a minority of relatively poor children in the UK. However, in the last decade the Blair government has pursued an anti-poverty strategy targeted at single-parent families with the result that children in couple families have become relatively poorer and powerful disincentives have been created that discourage people from taking the most viable routes out of poverty.     

INNOVATION, PRICE COMPETITION AND THE 'TILT' OF COMPETITION POLICY

Innovation is the key to rising living standards; competition is the key to a rapid rate of innovation.     

THE REPORT OF THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY TAX REFORM COMMISSION

Four economists give their views on the economics and political economy of the Conservative Party Tax Reform Commission Report.     

EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: POLICY AND MEASUREMENT PARADIGMS

Abstract Equality of opportunity is a widely accepted principle of distributive justice and it is the leading idea of most political platforms in several countries. According to this principle, a society might institute policies that secure an equal distribution of the means to reach a valuable outcome among its members. Once the set of opportunities have been equalized, which particular opportunity, the individual chooses from those open to her, is outside the scope of justice. Ex ante inequalities, and only those inequalities, should be eliminated or compensated for by public intervention. The recent literature on the opportunity egalitarianism often merges these questions introducing two different economic issues. On one side the design of a public policy intended to implement the equality of opportunity view and on the other side the problem of measuring the degree of opportunity inequality in a society. We describe the basic setting and assumptions of some different approaches derived by Roemer’s algorithm for public policy and then we discuss some theoretical and empirical studies to separate and test alternative paradigms on the measurement of inequality of opportunity. Accordingly, an extended critique on the causality issue on policies and measurements is taken into account.     

MONETARY POLICY AND THE CREDIT CRUNCH

This article examines how interest rates should have been changed in response to the commodity price shock and the credit crunch under different assumptions for the decision rules that might be used by central banks.     

THE MAKING OF ECONOMIC POLICY

Books reviewed in this article:
Rosalind Levacic (1987) Economic Policy-Making: Its Theory and Practice.
Paul Whiteley (1986) Political Control of the Macro-Economy.
Douglas A. Hibbs Jr. (1987) The Political Economy of Industrial Democracies.
Wyn Grant with Jane Sargent (1987) Business and Politics in Britain.
Michael Moran (1986) The Politics of Banking