The income elasticity of tax revenue: estimates for income and consumption taxes in the United Kingdom

This paper provides estimates of individual and aggregate revenue elasticities of income and consumption taxes in the UK over the period 1989–2000. It shows how budgetary changes, including changes to income‐related deductions, have substantially affected income elasticities. The estimates of consumption tax revenue elasticities show that changes in consumption patterns over time are important. A merit of the approach used here is that elasticity estimates can be calculated readily from official published sources.     

Comparing precaution in the United States and Europe

The regulation of health and environmental risks has generated transatlantic controversy concerning precaution and the precautionary principle (PP). Conventional wisdom sees the European Union endorsing the PP and proactively regulating uncertain risks, while the United States opposes the PP and waits for evidence of harm before regulating. Without favouring either approach, this paper critically analyses the conventional depiction of transatlantic divergence. First, it reviews several different versions of the PP and their different implications. Second, it broadens the transatlantic comparison of precaution beyond the typical focus on single-risk examples, such as genetically modified foods. Through case studies, including hormones in beef and milk production and mad cow disease in beef and in blood donations, as well as reference to a wider array of risks, the paper demonstrates that relative precaution varies enormously. Sometimes the EU is more precautionary than the US (such as regarding hormones in beef), while sometimes the US is more precautionary than the EU (such as regarding mad cow disease in blood). Thus, neither the EU nor the US can claim to be categorically 'more precautionary' than the other. The real pattern is complex and risk-specific. Third, the paper seeks explanations for this complex pattern in five sets of hypotheses: optimal tailoring on the merits, political systems, risk perceptions, trade protectionism, and legal systems. None of these hypotheses fully explains the observed complex pattern of relative transatlantic precaution. The paper concludes that differences in relative precaution depend more on the context of the particular risk than on broad differences in national regulatory regimes.     

Redistributive effects of the shift from personal income taxes to indirect taxes: Belgium 1988–93

Between 1988 and 1993, the Belgian personal income tax system and the indirect tax system were reformed to a considerable extent. We use microsimulation models to investigate the impact of the reform on the liability progression and the redistributive effect of the combined tax system. The redistributive effect of personal income taxes decreased, notwithstanding an increase in liability progression. For indirect taxes, both the liability regressivity and the reverse redistributive effect have been enhanced. We use recently developed statistical tests to gauge the significance of the observed changes.     

中美养老保险制度公平与效率的比较

中美两国养老保险制度的确立大致相差20年的时间,但在其各自的发展演变中却形成了不同的特点。美国建立了比较符合本国实际的养老保险制度,即具有完善的法律制度作保证,覆盖面广且具有多层次,强调国家、单位和个人三方面的责任,社会化和市场化程度较高,较好地协调了公平与效率。以上几方面对完善中国养老保险制度具有一定的借鉴意义。     

A normative analysis of capital income taxes in the presence of aggregate risk

A simple portfolio model is used to examine the efficiency effects of capital income taxes when the economy faces aggregate risk. To achieve a first best optimum the use of state contingent lump sum taxes is required. Through the tax policy the riskiness of total consumption is partly assigned to the private consumption and partly to the public consumption. State independent income taxes may generate a misallocation of risk and distort the allocation of resources between assets. The second best optimum, representing a trade-off between these inefficiencies, is characterized. Uniform taxation is shown to be optimal only in very special cases. Finally, the second best optimality rule for public consumption is extended to the case of uncertainty.     

The optimal mix of taxes on money,consumption and income

We determine the optimal combination of taxes on money, consumption and income in transactions technology models where exogenous government expenditures must be financed with distortionary taxes. We show that the optimal policy does not tax money, regardless of whether the government can use as alternative fiscal instruments an income tax, a consumption tax, or the two taxes jointly. These results are at odds with recent literature. We argue that the reason for this divergence is an inappropriate specification of the transactions technology adopted in the literature.     

小心投资美国

作为美国驻华大使,骆家辉比他的前任们获得了更多的关注,"朴素"与"作秀"之争从媒体蔓延到网络。当人们还在津津乐道双肩包和经济舱的时候,骆家辉却将矛头指向中国的商业环境,"呼吁"中国政府停止对金融服务业及外商投资"广泛的政府干预"。     

Auditing in the United States: a historical perspective

This article reports several archival auditing discoveries and episodes, including significant previously unpublished ones, in a context that relates auditing to early corporate enterprises in the United States. While the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's reliance on its audit committee of directors from its inception in 1827 and the functions of the auditing committee of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad in the 1850s are the principal subjects of the article, other railroad examples are also provided. These uses of auditing in the early corporate United States provide materials which provide a useful perspective for today's accounting researchers and practitioners as to the fundamental control and governance values of the auditing function. The article advances the basis for explaining the origins and development of auditing in the United States.     

美国的保险监管

从18世纪开始,美国对探索保险的监管方向做出不断的努力。本文作者为我们介绍了美国保险监管的发展历程和几次重大的立法与案例对其的影响,以及近期监管政府可能做出的政策选择。作者古奎特·李(L.Lee Colquitt)博士是美国奥本大学胡德夫金融学教授,此文由本刊的美国特约编辑杰姆斯·巴茨(James R.Barth)博士提供。     

IFRS in the United States: If,When and How

This paper provides an overview of the convergence efforts of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board. It begins with their 2002 Memorandum of Understanding and traces developments up to the December 2011 announcement by the IASB Chair that convergence has come to a close, and it is now time to incorporate IFRS into the US financial reporting system. The paper then assesses approaches being considered by the SEC for incorporating IFRS into the US financial reporting model. The conclusion calls on the SEC to ‘make a decision’ and set a date for US adoption of IFRS. Otherwise, the SEC effectively will have abandoned its goal of a single set of high quality global accounting standards.     

Profile of earners and remittances in Mexico: a relative deprivation approach

This research analyzes the individual qualities and microeconomic profiles from mexican workers in Mexico, which under relative deprivation conditions, take the choice to leave the country as an alternative way to improve their life expectations. It is found that mexican assistance programs encompass heterogeneous results and thus, are not a generalized signal of improvement for the families. Using a Multinomial Logit specification we found that public assistance programs reinforce relative deprivation of non-migrants families on those who have relatives who migrated. Human capital attributes present a direct relation with the process of migration not only for traditional exporting labor regions, but also for the north-border of the country. The south supports the relative deprivation hypothesis meanwhile, is not the case for the USA-mexican border States.     

Dynamic risksharing in the United States and Europe

We use a panel VAR model to improve upon the existing methodologies to analyze interregional risksharing and consumption smoothing channels. First, we endogenize the output process within a more general multi-equation framework, capturing the dynamic feedback between output and various smoothing channels. Second, in line with dynamic general equilibrium open economy models of risksharing, we exploit impulse response functions to trace the role of each smoothing channel over time, in the presence of different structural shocks (temporary vs. permanent and output vs. smoothing channels). In the application to the US and OECD countries, we find different dynamic properties of different smoothing channels. We compare our results with the predictions of standard risksharing and consumption theories, and tackle some of the puzzles in the literature, such as the “international risksharing puzzle” and the “consumption-output correlation puzzle.” We are also able to address such policy issues as whether fiscal stabilizers have been substitutes or complements for financial market diversification activities and whether further financial market integration is likely to provide countries with more shock-absorption tools. A key result is the strong substitutability between capital and credit smoothing in the US, and between fiscal and credit smoothing in the OECD.     

Domestic liquidity and cross-listing in the United States

This study examines changes in domestic liquidity after cross-listing in the United States. Our liquidity measures are based on intraday data from domestic markets for a large sample of firms that cross-list in the United States and for a matched sample of firms that do not cross-list. We find that unadjusted liquidity significantly improves after cross-listing. However, after controlling for contemporaneous changes in liquidity for a matched sample of firms that do not cross-list, there is no evidence of improvements in domestic liquidity due to cross-listing. Our results offer no support for the bonding hypothesis, or for the hypothesis that cross-listing improves domestic liquidity because of increased intermarket competition and additional order flow.     

Temperature and Growth: A Panel Analysis of the United States

We document that seasonal temperatures have significant and systematic effects on the U.S. economy, both at the aggregate level and across a wide cross section of economic sectors. This effect is particularly strong for the summer: a F increase in the average summer temperature is associated with a reduction in the annual growth rate of state‐level output of 0.15 to 0.25 percentage points. We combine our estimates with projected increases in seasonal temperatures and find that rising temperatures could reduce U.S. economic growth by up to one‐third over the next century.     

美国债务催收业的发展之路

在美国,如果消费者不能按时还款,他们的账户就会被转到催收部门,消费者贷款催收已经成为一个很大的行业。本文为我们介绍债务催收业中债权人及其代理人催收消费贷款的方式,特别是非抵押信用贷款的催收方式。作者供职于费城联邦储备银行。文章为本刊美国特约编辑杰姆斯·巴茨(James Barth)博士推荐。     

到美国上市要准备什么

公司是否有显著的、具有持续性的销售增长?公司需具有快速增长的业绩或在市场中的独特地位.近年来越来越多的创业阶段的各国企业虽不具有长期的历史业绩,但因为拥有对某一市场的领先地位或对自然资源的独家占有权,也能够成功地在美国融资.