Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Special Economic Zones In The United States: From Colonial Charters, To Foreign-Trade Zones, Toward Ussezs, Tom W. Bell

Tom W. Bell

Estimating Intensive And Extensive Tax Responsiveness: Do Older Workers Respond To Income Taxes?, Abby Alpert, David Powell

David Powell

Making Progress In Idaho State Budgeting: The Sequel, Dick Kinney

Richard Kinney

This paper examines Idaho state budgeting decisions for Fiscal Year 2014 and assesses what progress has been made to return to the state’s revenue and spending levels before the hard times in 2009 and 2010 (Kinney 2010; Kinney 2011). After briefly describing Idaho’s population and politics, the report discusses the state’s economic and General Fund revenue contexts for budget decision making. It then analyzes the governor’s budget and the legislature’s appropriations and considers two important potential impacts of these decisions. Progress in Idaho state budgeting continued to be mixed. The state economy generally gained since the recession years although prospects …

Do Payroll Taxes In The United States Create Bunching At Kink Points?, David Powell

David Powell

Much of the literature on labor supply responsiveness to taxes studies the effects of payroll and income taxes together, usually using income tax changes to identify effects. There is less research on how individuals respond to payroll taxes specifically. Given the salience of the payroll tax relative to other income taxes, it is possible that taxpayers respond differentially than income tax elasticities may suggest. Using data from the Social Security Administration, I exploit two recent short-term changes in payroll taxes to study whether labor earnings responded. The Making Work Pay Tax Credit reduced the payroll tax by 6.2 percentage points …

Polluters’ Profits And Political Response: Direct Control Versus Taxes: Comment, Robert S. Main, Charles W. Baird

Robert S. Main

In a recent issue of this Review, James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock (B-T) presented a public choice analysis of the relative merits of direct controls and taxes in externality control. In Section IV of their paper, B-T consider the case of reciprocal external diseconomies of consumption. They ask whether "... persons in this sort of interaction, acting through the political processes of the community, will impose on themselves either a penalty tax or direct regulation" (p. 143). Their analysis is carried out within the context of a two-person model in which each person consumes the same quantity of a good …

And The Cuts Just Keep On Coming: Idaho State Budgeting In 2009 And 2010, Dick Kinney

Richard Kinney

This report examines Idaho state budgeting during 2009 and 2010. After first describing Idaho’s people, politics, and budgeting process, it discusses the economic and General Fund revenue situations facing the state. The paper considers adjustments for FY 2010 proposed by Governor Otter and approved by the legislature, and budget recommendations and legislative actions for FY 2011 and their impacts on state spending. The report concludes with developments since the legislative session ended last spring.

Higher Gasoline Taxes: Elitist Or Equitable?, Barry Bluestone, Stephanie Pollack

Stephanie Pollack

No abstract provided.

Higher Gasoline Taxes: Elitist Or Equitable?, Barry Bluestone, Stephanie Pollack

Barry Bluestone

No abstract provided.

Multiple Pollutants, Unovered Sectors, And Suboptimal Environmental Policies, Daniel Karney, Don Fullerton

Daniel H Karney

In our analytical general equilibrium model where two polluting inputs can be substitutes or complements in production, we study the effects of a tax on one pollutant in two cases: one where both pollutants face taxes and the second where the other pollutant is subject to a permit policy. In each case, we solve for closed-form solutions that highlight important parameters. We demonstrate two important ways that environmental taxes and permits are not equivalent. First, the change in the pollutant facing a tax increase depends on whether the other pollutant is subject to a tax or permit policy. Second, if …

Social Spending, Taxes And Income Redistribution In Uruguay, Maximo Rossi, Nora Lustig, Marisa Bucheli, Florencia Amabile

Maximo Rossi

How much redistribution does Uruguay accomplish through social spending and taxes? How progressive are revenue collection and social spending? A standard fiscal incidence analysis shows that Uruguay achieves a nontrivial reduction in inequality and poverty when all taxes and transfers are combined. In comparison with other five countries in Latin America, it ranks first (poverty reduction) and second (inequality reduction), and first in terms of poverty reduction effectiveness and third in terms of overall (including ransfers in kind) inequality reduction effectiveness. Direct taxes are progressive and indirect taxes are regressive. Social spending on direct transfers, contributory pensions, education and health …

Ldc Agriculture: Non-Parametric Malmquist Productivity Indexes, Lilyan E. Fulginiti, Richard K. Perrin

Richard K Perrin

Agricultural productivity in 41 Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries from 1960 to 1999 is examined by estimating a semi-nonparametric Fourier production frontier. Over the four decades the estimated rate of productivity change was 0.83% per year, although the average rate from 1985-99 was a strong 1.90% per year. Former UK colonies exhibited significantly higher productivity gains than others, while Liberia and countries that had been colonies of Portugal or Belgium exhibited net reductions in productivity. We measure a significant reduction in productivity during political conflicts and wars, and a significant increase in productivity among those countries with higher levels of political …

To Increase Federal Revenue, Taxes Must Go Up, David S. Mason

David S. Mason

An opinion piece on tax cuts.

Tax Wedges, Unemployment Benefits And Labour Market Outcomes In The New Eu Members, Alberto Behar

Alberto Behar

To what extent do priors about tax wedges, unemployment benefits and labour market outcomes apply to the new members of the EU? Principal Component Analysis (PCA) suggests the new members share similar characteristics to each other and should be grouped separately from the rest of Europe. There are statistically significant differences in the medians of unemployment benefits and the labour market outcomes of the less productive, but insignificant differences in prime-age outcomes and tax wedges. Within the new members, our non-parametric analysis finds tax wedges and the duration of benefits (not the replacement ratio) are associated with poor labour market …

Distributional Effects Of Environmental And Energy Policy: An Introduction, Don Fullerton

Don Fullerton

This chapter reviews literature on the distributional effects of environmental and energy policy. In particular, many effects of such policy are likely regressive. First, it raises the price of fossil-fuel-intensive products, expenditures on which are a high fraction of low-income budgets. Second, if abatement technologies are capital-intensive, then any mandate to abate pollution may induce firms to use more capital. If demand for capital is raised relative to labor, then a lower relative wage may also hurt low-income households. Third, pollution permits handed out to firms bestow scarcity rents on well-off individuals who own those firms. Fourth, low-income individuals may …

Assessing Welfare Accounts, Stefan Fölster, Robert Gidehag, Micheal J. Orszag, Dennis Snower

Dennis Snower

The paper examines the possible effects of introducing a large-scale welfare reform in Sweden, namely, the introduction of comprehensive welfare accounts. Under this policy, individuals make mandatory contributions to accounts, which they can top up with voluntary contributions. In return, individuals’ welfare benefits are paid from their accounts. The paper uses a large panel of individual income data to examine how the adoption of universal welfare accounts may affect economic activity. We find that this policy could be designed so as to reduce social insurance expenditure considerably, improve the incentives to work and save, all with relatively small redistributive impact.

Management Of Fisheries In Eu: A Principal-Agent Analysis, Frank Jensen, Niels Vestergaard

Niels Vestergaard

In this paper, an EU tax on fishing effort is studied as an alternative to the system of Total Allowable Catches (TACs). The analysis is conducted under imperfect information, and the hypothesis adopted is that the EU lacks information about the costs of individual fishermen. In light of this imperfection, there are at least two reasons for considering an EU tax. First, it can be used to correct part of the market failure associated with fisheries. Second, it can be used to secure correct revelation of fishermen types in light of asymmetric information.