A household model of charitable contributions and tax incentives

The aim of this paper is to present a theoretical model of the monetary contributions made by households to nonprofit organizations, and to analyse the effect of tax incentives according to the different tax systems currently in force in the European Union Member States. This model is estimated by means of data drawn from the Family Expenditure Survey and the Regional Accounts in Spain covering the period 1990–91. We analyse the effects that different variables and tax incentives have on household decisions. The results indicate that the decisions to donate, and how much to be donated, are taken sequentially and are significantly influenced by household characteristics, the provision of public funds and donation price. The analysis of the Spanish tax system indicates that the model generates donation incentives.     

Rural women and state policy: The Latin American agrarian reform experience

This review of 13 Latin American agrarian reforms shows that most have directly benefited only men. It is argued that this is largely because of the common designation of ‘households’ as the beneficiaries of an agrarian reform and the subsequent incorporation of only male household heads into the new agrarian reform structures. It is shown that a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for rural women to benefit on par with men is that they too be designated as beneficiaries. Women as well as men must be given access to land or the opportunity to participate within the agrarian cooperatives or state farms promoted by an agrarian reform. This comparative analysis of the Latin American agrarian reform demonstrates that this has happened only in countries where the incorporation of rural women to the reform is an explicit objective of state policy.     

Deficit sustainability and inflation in EMU: An analysis from the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level

Price determination theory typically focuses on the role of monetary policy, while the role of fiscal policy is usually neglected. From a different point of view, the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level takes into account monetary and fiscal policy interactions and assumes that fiscal policy may determine the price level, even if monetary authorities pursue an inflation targeting strategy. In this paper we try to test empirically whether the time path of the government budget in EMU countries would have affected price level determination. Our results point to the sustainability of fiscal policy in all the EMU countries but Finland, although no firm conclusions can be drawn about the prevalence of either monetary or fiscal dominance.     

Education and sustainable development in Romania and the European Union countries

The sustainable development supposes a development strategy that would ensure the interdependence and complementarily of objectives from the social, economic and environmental fields. The degree of priority established for the three dimensions of sustainable development differs from one country to another, a fact that confers a national and local meaning to this issue. For the Central and Eastern European countries, balanced economic development represents one of the fundamental objectives of the reforms started in 1990. Education represents a priority of any country＇s economic development and an extremely important element of economic growth. This paper presents the characteristics of the Romanian educational system while achieving a comparative analysis regarding different countries of the European Union, both from a quantitative viewpoint （using the main indicators in the education field） and a qualitative viewpoint （using student performances in international evaluations）. In the end, we present some proposals for the improvement of the present state of the Romanian educational system.     

创造力容易败德？

笛卡尔在1641年著成的《第一哲学沉思录》中提出了聪明而诡诈的“邪恶天才”这一概念。自此以后,我们经常能看到这样的人物《沉默的羔羊》中的汉尼拔·莱克特、     

Collaborative economy,a society service? Involvement with ethics and the common good

The company at the service of today's society is reinventing itself to satisfy people's needs in a more efficient and adapted way. Globalization and digitization promote increasing interaction and new forms of economic organization such as collaborative economy. However, can it be understood that this new business model, more than others, has as its raison d'être in the search for the “common good”? A first approach suggests the presence of values related to collaboration between equals aiming at a common good. However, the possible existence of a profit motive and the labor relations framework in which certain activities are carried out have created a debate on their ethical qualification. In this context, considering 278 companies in the collaborative economy sector, the relationship between the concept of “common good” and the collaborative economy is analyzed, while examining whether these new realities have an explicit ethical intention (of search for goods for people). According to the results, it is not possible to assert that these platforms have an ethical concern, but it is observed that they are in line with the common good and implicitly contribute to the service of society.     

ARMS EXPORT CONTROLS, SUBSIDIES AND THE WTO EXEMPTION

Owing to the World Trade Organization (WTO) exemption that allows governments to subsidize arms exports, the arms trade is one of the few remaining areas of trade where we observe export subsidies. This paper examines the effect of arms controls, in the form of licensing delays, on the incentives to subsidize arms exports and conversely the effect of the WTO arms trade exemption on the incentives to break arms control agreements. Our main result is that arms controls and free trade commitments re‐enforce each other. Licensing delays reduce the incentive to subsidise and free trade without subsidies reduces the benefits of a unilateral abrogation of arms controls. Transparency actually worsens the Nash inefficiencies at play in that incomplete information leads to lower subsidies and lower arms exports.     

General allocation problems with single-peaked preferences: path-independence and related topics

We face the problem of allocationg a fixed amount of a perfectly divisible good among a group of agents with single-peaked preferences. We survey the three different cases studied in the literature: the pure distribution case, the redistribution case, and the gerneral case. The so called general case provide with a natural framework to analyze the idea of path-independence. In this framework, we explore the existence of rules fulfilling this property. Our first result is negative: a strong version of this property cannot be fulfilled together with efficiency. Nonetheless, some restricted versions of the path-independence property are compatible with interesting properties, in particular no manipulability, and no envy. We then identify two solutions satisfying this sort of property: the equal distance rule, and a new extension of the uniform rule.