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Full-Text Articles in International Economics

Perspectives On The Global Financial Crisis From Emerging Managers And Public Policy Makers [Full Version], James L. Grant Dec 2014

Perspectives On The Global Financial Crisis From Emerging Managers And Public Policy Makers [Full Version], James L. Grant

James L. Grant

This manuscript attempts to capture the perspectives of emerging managers and public policy makers as evinced in the perspectives of graduate students and others who were enrolled in my newly developed course on the global financial crisis—first offered in the 2010 Harvard Summer Economics Program—at a time when students were engaged in the midst and aftermath of the most severe U.S. and worldwide recession since the Great Depression of the early 1930s. The many perspectives gathered on the causes, consequences, remedies, and perhaps more importantly, a glimpse at student thoughts, concerns, and worries at the time—have been collected from the …


Subsidizing Non-Polluting Goods Vs. Taxing Polluting Goods For Pollution Reduction, Robert S. Main May 2014

Subsidizing Non-Polluting Goods Vs. Taxing Polluting Goods For Pollution Reduction, Robert S. Main

Robert S. Main

Pigovian taxes on polluters are politically unpopular, but subsidies for non-polluting sources are politically attractive. This paper presents a linear demand and supply model and numerical example to explore the trade-offs between taxing polluting sources of a good versus subsidizing non-polluting sources of the same good. While the model (along with the associated numerical example) shows the optimality of Pigovian taxes, it also shows how much welfare is reduced if subsidies for nonpolluters are employed instead. Further, it shows the optimal tax, given any level of subsidy and the optimal subsidy, given any level of tax.


Can A Unilateral Carbon Tax Reduce Emissions Elsewhere?, Joshua Elliott, Don Fullerton Dec 2013

Can A Unilateral Carbon Tax Reduce Emissions Elsewhere?, Joshua Elliott, Don Fullerton

Don Fullerton

One country or sector that tries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions may fear that other countries or sectors will get a competitive advantage and increase emissions. Computable general equilibrium (CGE) models such as Elliott et al (2010a,b) indicate that 15% to 25% of abatement might be offset by this “leakage.” Yet the Fullerton et al (2012) simple two-sector analytical general equilibrium model shows an offsetting term with negative leakage. In this paper, we use a full CGE model with many countries and many goods to measure effects in a way that allows for this negative leakage term. We vary elasticities …


Does Foreign Aid Reduce Tax Revenue? Further Evidence, John Thornton Dec 2013

Does Foreign Aid Reduce Tax Revenue? Further Evidence, John Thornton

John Thornton

A common criticism of foreign aid is that it reduces domestic tax effort. Empirical research on the issue has been hampered by the failure to tackle endogeneity issues effectively. We use measures of geographical and cultural distance to donor countries as instrumental variables to uncover the causal effect of aid on tax revenue in a panel of 93 countries. The tax to GDP ratio is found to decrease following aid inflows. This reduction in tax effort is statistically and economically significant; a one SD increase in aid causes a 0.52 percentage point drop in the tax-to-GDP ratio. The results indicate …


The (Small) Blessing Of Foreign Aid: Further Evidence On Aid's Impact On Democracy, John Thornton Dec 2013

The (Small) Blessing Of Foreign Aid: Further Evidence On Aid's Impact On Democracy, John Thornton

John Thornton

In an empirical contribution to the literature of foreign aid, we estimate the impact of foreign aid on democracy in a panel of 93 developing economies during 1971–2010. We find that foreign aid promotes democracy, with the result robust to different estimation methodologies and control variables and to instrumenting for foreign aid.