Are corporate tax rates, or countries, converging?

The statutory rate and effective tax rate imposed on corporation income—as well as the dispersion of these rates—began to decline in the 1980s. Is this due to changes in the domestic determinants of corporate taxation or increases in international pressures for tax competition?This paper finds clear evidence that the corporate tax rate is insulated from a country's revenue needs: across countries, there is no association of the expenditure-GDP ratio with the corporate statutory rate and only weak evidence of a positive association with the average rate. There is suggestive, but not definitive, evidence that the domestic role of the corporate tax as a backstop to the individual income tax is important: across countries, there is indeed a strong association between the top individual rate and the top statutory corporate rate.There is intriguing evidence about the role of international competitive pressures on corporate taxation. Measures of openness are negatively associated with statutory corporate rates, although not with revenues collected as a fraction of GDP. Strikingly, larger, more trade-intensive countries do collect more corporate tax, but this may be because these countries are more attractive venues for investment.     

Mass Action Is Not Individually Rational: Reply

The present study examines the relationship between openness (tradeGDP ratio) and growth. Our cross-country panel data analysis of a sample 51 less developed countries shows that for only 11 rich and highly trade-dependent countries a higher real growth is associated with a higher trade share. Time series study of individual country experiences shows that the majority of the countries covered in the sample including the East Asian countries experienced no positive long-term relationship between openness and growth during the 1961-2002 time period. Our study of the experience of various regions and groups shows that only the Middle Income group exhibited a positive long-term relationship.     

欧债危机后发达国家税制改革趋势及对中国的启示

欧债危机后,发达国家依靠紧缩的财政政策来弥补巨大的财政赤字和政府债务,各国也进入到了增税周期。发达国家通过强化税制公平、开征银行税、为中小企业和创新企业减税和加强征管的方法来增加税收收入。经济全球化下中国应顺应世界税制改革的趋势,借鉴成功经验完善中国的税收制度。同时一国的宏观经济形势是税制改革的基础,任何税制改革都不应脱离本国的实际情况。     

新企业所得税法实施对欠发达地区（宿迁）经济的影响

新企业所得税法的实施,对我国内外资企业发展、引进外资和地方经济发展等方面产生了重大影响。宿迁市作为一个经济欠发达地区,新税法的实施,有助于促进宿迁市农业产业化,促进高新技术企业的发展,提高企业市场竞争力和外资引进的质量和水平。为应对新税法的实施,宿迁市应充分利用新税法的税收政策和结合地区特点,促进农业规模化 促进传统产业高新技术化和高新技术产业化 创造公平的竞争环境和改善投资环境,促进本地区经济协调快速发展。     

FDI,taxes and agglomeration economies in the EU15

This article provides an empirical analysis of the impact of tax differentials and agglomeration economies on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The article departs from most previous work on FDI and tax competition in a number of ways. First, it incorporates several measures of agglomeration in order to investigate whether agglomeration economies mitigate the downward spiral in tax rates. As the strength of agglomeration economies may vary with the degree of integration, we use a panel of bilateral FDI flows for a highly integrated region including countries with similar economic structure – the EU15 – from 1986 to 2004. Second, the empirical analysis explicitly deals with the problem of selection bias by using the Heckman sample selection approach. Also, by focusing on the EU15, we are able to provide additional information on the determinants of FDI between similar, higher-income countries. The empirical analysis provides some evidence of corporate marginal effective tax rates having an impact on FDI. This result, however, is sensitive to the inclusion of agglomeration economies. In particular, we find both Marshall types of technological externalities and overall concentration of economic activity to have an influence on FDI flows and, moreover, mitigating the negative impact of taxes.     

Why Have Corporate Tax Revenues Declined? Another Look

The relative constancy of non-financial corporate tax revenuesas a share of US GDP masks offsetting trends in the ratio ofcorporate profits to GDP (declining) and the average tax rate(increasing). The average tax rate rose steadily between 1996and 2003, an increase largely attributable to the importanceof tax losses. This rise casts some doubt on the role of taxplanning activities in reducing corporate taxes. So, too, doesthe relative stability of the rate of profit (relative to netassets), which might be expected to have declined had the understatementof profits for tax purposes been increasing. (JEL code: H25,G32)     

欠发达地区人口城市化模式——以梅州市为例

欠发达地区是我国人口城市化的“流源地”,其人口城市化模式具有显著的特征。从人口城市化的导向、动力、空间、目标等方面分析欠发达地区人口城市化的模式特征,认为受多重导向作用。欠发达地区人口城市化“非剩余”劳动力推动明显,人口本地城市化弱化,非两栖化非完全式的人口异地城市化活跃,对欠发达地区社会经济发展产生深刻的影响。     

税收增长对经济增长的负面冲击

1994年税制改革以来,我国各地区税收收入连年高速增长,导致全国税收收入占GDP的比重迅速上升。研究发现这种税收收入的快速增长给经济增长带来严重不利影响。它降低了经济增长率和税后单位资本的产出水平,并且中西部地区税收增长对经济增长的负面冲击高于东部地区。这种情况对于我国保持经济长期稳定增长,有效实施西部大开发战略可能不利,政府应适时调整税收政策。     

中央转移支付对欠发达地区的财力均等化效应研究

财力均等化是中央转移支付的最基本目标,是落后地区实现公共服务均等化的基础。本文选取了尽量能反映区域特点的13个指标,对我国的省级行政辖区做了发达地区、中等发达地区和欠发达地区的划分,把研究的视角聚焦于欠发达地区。通过变异系数指标对比了中央转移支付对三大区域的财力均等化效应,结论显示,欠发达地区的财力均等化不仅没有得到改善,其间的财力差距反而被不断拉大。欠发达地区受中央转移支付财力均等化效应不显著的原因可能与中央转移支付制度设计的导向不清和欠发达地区畸形依赖专项转移支付有关。     

Allowances for Corporate Equity in Practice

This article provides an overview of full and partial allowancefor corporate equity (ACE) tax systems in practice. In the recentpast, ACE systems existed in Austria, Croatia and Italy. Brazilstill applies a variant of such a system and Belgium introducedone in 2006. This article summarizes the empirical literatureon past ACE systems, and provides a theoretical and empiricalassessment of the Brazilian ACE variant. The main finding isthat the Brazilian reform introduced an ACE system for a minorityof firms only, with the majority instead having a system ofdividend deductibility. Despite the reduction in the tax preferencefor debt finance, capital structures have not changed much,but dividends have increased. Investment appears to have benefitedfrom the reform, although the extent to which this was due tothe new structure rather than the tax cut is unclear. (JEL codes:H25, H21, C33)     

Health insurance subsidies and the expansion of an implicit marriage penalty: a regional comparison of various means-tested programmes

Any subsidy provision for healthcare premiums, including those embedded in Affordable Care Act (ACA), has the potential to result in some couples facing an implicit penalty when married relative to unmarried. To illustrate such consequences of means-tested subsidies of health insurance premiums, we construct hypothetical households earning different levels of income who are eligible for current subsidies in the USA. and compare the estimated implicit marriage penalty faced by these households to the one faced by low-income households who are eligible for various means-tested programmes (e.g. TANF, WIC, SNAP) for each of the 48 contiguous states. We find that, like very low-income households, marriage can potentially penalize couples who receive health insurance premium subsidies by decreasing their overall disposable income by as much as 14%. We find that the ACA increases the number of households subject to marriage penalties embedded in means-tested programmes for low-income couples. This distortion will exist for any future health insurance premium subsidies that are means tested at the household income level.     

加速东部沿海欠发达地区发展的有效路径研究

依据众多的经济发展理论分析沿海欠发达地区存在着五方面的问题：技术创新与制度创新能力弱,生产力发展水平低下;农业比重过大,产业缺陷较明显;地理位置偏僻,中心城市的经济辐射作用相当有限;经济发展落后,人口规模相对偏低;平均国民收入水平低,消费与投资均陷入不足的恶性循环。因此,应该改善当地的交通条件,促进制造业产业集群的形成,加快沿海欠发达地区城市化发展进程,扶持服务业,大力发展旅游业,以加速东部欠发达地区的发展。     

发达国家促进城镇化就业政策分析

根据“十二五”规划纲要,未来5年我国城镇化率要提高4个百分点,到2015年达到51.5%。发达国家在城镇化进程的各个阶段均制定和实施了一系列促进就业和再就业的政策措施,对其城镇化实现起到了积极作用。随着我国城镇化进程的深入,现有就业制度和就业体制的缺点和不足逐渐暴露,克服这些缺点和不足,发达国家城镇化进程中就业促进政策可资借鉴。     

发达国家产业共性技术供给模式及其启示

产业共性技术对于各国产业的快速发展,巩固和提升产业竞争优势具有重大的意义,因此,主要发达国家都十分重视政府对于本国产业共性技术发展的支持。美国共性技术的供给采取"企业+政府"的双主体投资机制;欧盟则通过欧洲框架计划、尤里卡计划等较松散的组织来联合欧洲各国的科研力量,为各成员国提供产业关键共性技术;日本和韩国政府对于本国产业共性技术的支持主要是通过国立研究机构(如,日本产业技术综合研究所,韩国科学技术研究院)来实现的。目前,与发达国家相比,我国产业共性技术的供给存在明显不足,因此,应借鉴发达国家的经验,尽快成立综合性的或行业性的工业技术研究院,专门研究行业发展中重大的、关键性的共性技术,为应对日益激烈的国际竞争提供技术支持。     

世界发达国家文化建设多元化投入机制研究

美国、英国、法国以及日本和韩国等发达国家,在文化建设方面实施和运行的信贷和财团融资、企业和公益性捐助、产业基金、彩票基金、外资引入、风险投资以及各种资本市场融资等多元化投入手段和运行机制,对于促进文化建设和文化产业方针具有十分明显的效益。系统分析和研究发达国家文化建设和文化产业发展的多元化投入机制问题,将可为中国文化建设和文化产业发展投入机制改革和完善以及高效运行提供一定的研究参考价值。     

中外粮食补贴政策对比分析

发达国家的粮食补贴方式有许多可资借鉴的先进经验。我国现行粮食直接补贴政策存在着与WTO规则不符、标准单一、政策落实不到位等问题。为进一步完善我国的粮食直补政策,我们应做好如下工作:建立符合WTO农业协议的补贴方式;构建农民收入支持体系;建立监督机制,切实提高政策的执行效率等。     

欧盟等发达国家应对气候变化法律制度探析

人类应对气候变化进入关键时期,各国纷纷通过国内立法来履行《气候变化框架公约》及《京都议定书》所确定的共同但有区别的责任。欧美日国家应对气候变化的法律制度与我国的经济发展利益攸关,对我国参与国际气候谈判具有重大影响。我国尚未制定专门的气候变化法,应探析他国应对气候变化的立法经验,遵循科学发展观的理念,完善有中国特色的气候变化应对法律制度体系。     

发达国家旅游业可持续发展的特点及对中国的启示

旅游业可持续发展理念最早出现在发达国家,也在发达国家得到了理论和实践的发展和完善。通过对发达国家旅游业可持续发展特点的总结,结合我国的实际情况,对于我国旅游产业的可持续发展具有一定的启示。