Schumpeter's crisis of the tax state: An essay in fiscal sociology

Schumpeter'sCrisis of the Tax State and other fiscal writings are summarized. His crisis theory and its relation to his prognosis of capitalist decline is explored, along with Goldscheid's earlier model. Both are found to have underestimated the resilience of the tax state and its ability to sustain expanding budgets. Schumpeter's view of the income tax as appropriate for a minimal state is assessed along with subsequent tax development. His fiscal model is placed in the context of his understanding of sociology as a social science. Some conjectures on his response to the subsequent course of fiscal sociology are added.The Editors invitation to revisit the Crisis of the Tax State coincided with my intent to review Schumpeter's recently publishedEssays in Economic Policy, 1991, C. Seidl and W. Stolper, eds., Princeton University Press. Spanning Schumpeter's economic and fiscal writings for three decades, this volume provides a rich addition to his initial vision, so that these pages may serve both tasks.     

Specific Purpose Payments and the Commonwealth Grants Commission*

The Commonwealth Grants Commission has, over the past ten years, been concerned with assessing the per capita relativities to be applied to the distribution of general revenue grants to the States in Australia to achieve fiscal equalization. In arriving at these assessments, the Commission has developed a number of approaches to the treatment of specific purpose payments. It is argued that one of these approaches – the inclusion approach – has an overriding effect which may place fiscal equalization in conflict with other objectives of Commonwealth policy. The nature of this conflict and its management are then explored     

Wage inflation and labour conflicts in the Netherlands : An empirical investigation using the co-integration approach

The ‘wage space’, which is defined as the sum of price inflation and labour productivity growth, has played a major role as an indicator of allowable wage increases in the post-war wage negotiations in the Netherlands. This paper shows that: (a) wages and the wage space are co-integrated; (b) the deviation between wages and the wage space may act as an error correction term in the wage equation when both variables are identified as I(2); and (c) political consensus and the threat of labour conflicts (rather than actual strike activity) may be identified as the ‘mechanism’ behind this error correction in the wage equation.     

Household formation by the young in the United States

"A model of household formation by the young is specified and estimated. It was found that the headship rate for the young in the United States depends on income, the cost of housing, the number of families receiving AFDC payments, the age at first marriage for females and for males, and the percentage of males enrolled in college. Household formation by the young is much more sensitive to changes in income and the price of housing than household formation by the entire adult population. The estimated results are used to examine the change in the headship rate from 1961 to 1979 and from 1979 to 1987."     

Unemployment compensation and episodes of nonemployment

This paper examines the influence of unemployment insurance (UI) on the length of nonemployment spells experienced by young workers. The analysis introduces a flexible duration model to estimate the effects of the weekly benefit amount and weeks of eligibility on the amount of time spent between jobs by men, distinguishing between the experiences of UI and non-UI recipients. The empirical findings suggest three conclusions: (1) UI recipients experience longer spells of nonemployment than their non-UI recipient counterparts, at least up to the point of exhaustion of UI benefits; (2) the level of the weekly benefit amount does not significantly affect the length of nonemployment spells; and (3) increasing the number of weeks of eligibility offered by a UI program leads to longer episodes of nonemployment.     

What determines outstanding corporate debt mix? Evidence from fractional multinomial logit estimation

This study employs the fractional multinomial logit setting proposed by Papke and Wooldridge (1996) to examine factors driving the choice among nonbank private (144A) debt, bank loans and public debt made by 988 nonfinancial firms during 1993–2007. We document that the majority of firm-level factors have persistent effects on corporate outstanding debt mix across economic conditions. We also highlight the importance of macroeconomic variables on firms’ borrowing decisions as predicted by Diamond (1991). Finally, we document a substitution effect among debt financing sources due to credit rating downgrades, which is inconsistent with Rauh and Sufi (2010).     

Detailed cost estimating in the automotive industry: Data and information requirements

The automotive industry operates in a very competitive market which requires controlling product costs, improving the product quality and shortening the development lead time. Cost estimation requires quality data and information, therefore this research project identified several issues that hinder this activity, namely a lack of resources and information acquiring and validation difficulties. This research paper presents the various data and information requirements for detailed cost estimating in automotive industry. The research project has identified the common cost estimation process model within the identified industry sector. The study identified the types of data and information requirements for cost estimating. It has also constructed the relevant data infrastructure as the basis for a Web Portal, which is the physical presentation of the information infrastructure. Multiple sources of data collection techniques were employed to identify the types of data needed for detailed cost estimates within a manufacturing company. These techniques include participant observation, semi-structured interviews, process models and document analysis of six different UK based automotive companies. Methods of process modelling like IDEF3 and knowledge capture technique known as X-Pat (eXpert Process Knowledge Analysis Tool) were employed in this study.This study makes several contributions concerning both conceptual and practicable information issues that have long vexed detailed cost estimating practices in the automotive industry. The study conceptually defines the detailed bottom-up information (i.e., individual cost elements and the links between them) needed for an accurate estimate of cost, and shows why each element of information is needed and where it fits into the cost model. To respond to the practicable information vexations, the study shows where to find the necessary cost information and proposes a validation method. The research creates useful knowledge in the form of an improved understanding of information requirements for cost estimates. The benefits to the industry of better cost estimates based on this research at the conceptual design stage include improved cost control and enhanced ability to adjust to anticipated market trends.