论国际税法及其对国内税收制度的影响

通常认为,国际税法存在国内法规范和国际公法规范两方面的法律渊源.其中,国内法规范主要涉及规范跨境交易的国内税收制度,国际公法规范主要包括税收协定和共识性国际税法.共识性国际税法是以国际税收的机构、文书、解释三者为基础构建的共识性规范.在税基侵蚀和利润转移(BEPS)项目1.0时代,共识性国际税法推动了税收协定和国内相关税收制度的大量修改;迈入BEPS2.0时代,共识性国际税法能否在独立核算原则、独立交易原则和常设机构原则这三项国际税收基石性原则的根本性变革方面发挥作用,有待进一步考察.若BEPS2.0共识可以达成,将强有力地证明共识性国际税法的存在及其重要性.     

Food Stamp Benefits and Child Poverty

In 2000, 8.8 million children lived in households participating in the Food Stamp Program, making this assistance program a crucial component of the social safety net. Despite its importance, little research has examined food stamps' effect on children's overall well-being. Using the Current Population Survey from 1989 to 2001, we consider the impact of food stamps on three measures of poverty—the headcount, the poverty gap, and the squared poverty gap. We find that in comparison to the headcount measure, food stamp benefits lead to large reductions in the poverty gap and squared poverty gap measures.     

The Impact of Environmental Contamination on Condo Prices: A Hybrid Repeat-Sale/Hedonic Approach

We extend the literature on the impact of externalities using an approach based on a hybrid of hedonic and repeat-sales methods. The externality in question is groundwater contamination in Scottsdale, Arizona. The use of condominium sales allows us to assume that major physical characteristics remain unchanged, but location parameters may be altered by urban growth and development as well as contamination. We find an economically significant discount for properties located in the contaminated area. Interestingly, it does not appear until several years after the contamination becomes publicly known, and it seems to have disappeared before the end of the study period.     

Testing the effectiveness of regulatory interest rate risk measurement

A depository institution's interest rate risk (IRR) exposure is the sensitivity of its earnings or market value of equity to changes in interest rates. Since the mid-1980's, bank regulators have developed broadly applied, centralized IRR models which are used to help assess individual institutions' capital adequacy. This paper tests the effectiveness of the earliest of these regulatory IRR models: the incomegap estimates calculated by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) during the latter 1980's. Despite the many problems caused by the broad application of generic assumptions and the presence of embedded options, we find that the FHLBB gap estimates provided a significant measure of IRR exposure. We believe that these results bode well for the success of ongoing, more sophisticated regulatory modeling efforts.