Income Tax Rhetoric (or Why Do We Want Tax Reform?)

The 1992 presidential election is over but the United States economy still faces hard times. Each man who hoped to lead us promised to revive our sick economy, and each cure promised included a strong dose of tax reform. At no time during the campaign or the transition did anyone seem to ask: Can tax reform actually increase employment, lower the deficit, nwerse our trade imbalance, or provide any other boost out of the recession? Why do Americans accept the notion that economic recovery requires tax reform? We did not always think this way. Why does it seem so natural now? Furthermore, is it good for our politics to focus so much on constant tax reform

Knowledge-based economy

The European Union is resorting to long-term multi-annual political and economical plans. The current set of plans, “Horizons 2020”, also involves restructuring the educational system, as in the Bologna system. The idea behind it is that education should help industry to win the competitive battle with other major economical blocks. The idea is best described by the adage of the European Union of developing a so-called “knowledge-based economy”. It implies that education is a form of investment. We should educate people – the society should spend effort on educating people – in order for society to make profit on it. Contrasting this is the idea of education as a consumption good. In the latter, people study to become knowledgeable, since knowledge makes a person happy. We discuss here the dissident view why an educational system that is for investment-only will at the end not bear fruit and will destroy science, creativity and eventually any form of competitiveness in the economy. It will lead to moral as well as financial bankruptcy.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

If a Pure Market Economy Is So Good, Why Doesn’t It Exist? The Importance of Changing Preferences Versus Incentives in Social Change

Many economists argue that a pure market economy cannot come about because people will always have incentives to use coercion (Cowen and Sutter, 2005; Holcombe, 2004). We maintain that these economists leave out an important factor in social change. Change can come about by altering incentives or preferences, but since most neoclassical economists ignore changing preferences, they too quickly conclude that change is impossible. History shows that social change based on changes in preferences is common. By recognizing that preferences need not be constant, political economists can say much more about changing the world

Copyright and Creativity: cultural economics for the 21st century

Inaugural lecture for the personal Chair in Economics of Creative Industries, Faculty of History and ArtsThe title of this lecture is ‘Copyright and Creativity: cultural economics for the 21st century’ and the title of my chair is Economics of Creative Industries, so I obviously think I have something to say about creativity. However, creativity is one of those words that has become completely debased by overuse: anything and everything is apparently ‘creative’ nowadays – not just industries and the economy but also advertising, salesmanship, management consultancy – even accountancy! And of course, artists are creative but then so are children and according to UNESCO we are all creative. Overuse has rendered it devoid of meaning – so, is it even worth investigating, especially from the economic point of view? The ‘creative economy’ has become a buzz word, a slogan, something that is unquestionably true. And it is easy to see why Ministries of Culture have embraced it so whole-heartedly: it empowers them to be in the forefront of the quest for economic growth, just as that other buzz word ‘the economic impact of the arts’ did 20 years ago. But Ministries of Economic Affairs are also on the bandwagon. So, if I am scornful of the endless appeal to the creative economy, why choose this theme? Well, the reason is that if these terms ‘creative economy’ and ‘creative industries’ are to be taken seriously (and governments from here to Uruguay have policies for them), economists should be capable of analysing them, especially cultural economists. Put simply: if the creative economy is such a good thing, can an economy be made more creative and if so, how? - do we know how to create creativity? Is it something that is amenable to social engineering? These questions have to be answered if we are to believe that government policies can promote the creative economy

Merit Motives and Government Intervention: Public Finance in Reverse

A common view in public finance is that there is an efficiency-redistribution tradeoff in which distortions are tolerated in order to redistribute income. However, the fact that so much public- and private redistributive activity involves in-kind transfers rather than cash may be indicative of merit motives on the part of the payers rather than a preference for the well-being of the recipients. Efficiency-enhancing public policy in a merit good economy has the primary purpose of creating distortions and may only redistribute income from rich to poor in order to create those distortions the reverse of the conventional efficiency-redistribution tradeoff. We discuss why the largest programs on the federal and local level in the US including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and Public Schooling seem consistent with the reverse tradeoff rather than the classic one. Transfers are not lump sum in a merit good economy, and explicitly accounting for this when calculating tax incidence reduces the estimated progressivity of government policy. As one example, we calibrate the conventional life-cycle model to show how the amount of over-saving induced on the poor by Social Security hurts them at least as much as the progressive' benefits help them. When the distortions outweigh fiscal transfers in this manner, the classic efficiency-redistribution tradeoff cannot justify the program and the program is far less progressive than conventional analysis suggests.

Who Makes the Rules of Globalization?

In this paper I argue that profit-maximizing firms, even though they contribute to social welfare when they compete in the market, may not do so when they influence the political process. In particular, I suggest, through several examples from both the real world and from economic theory, that corporations have played a significant role in the formulation of the rules of the international trading system. They did this in the formation of the WTO, where they were responsible for the expansion to cover both intellectual property and services. And they do this in preferential trading arrangements such as the NAFTA, where they inserted the notorious Chapter 11 and specified rules of origin for automotive products. All of this is quite consistent with economic theory, including the literature on the political economy of trade policy. I also use a simple duopoly model to illustrate a domestic firm’s interest in setting rules of origin. The corporate influence on rules need not be bad, but there is no reason why it should be good either, as these examples illustrate.political economy of trade, trade institutions, globalisation, globalization

Turning the Tide on Persistent Rural Poverty: Blueprint for a Path Forward

It is the goal of NeighborWorks America to make every place a community of opportunity. Unfortunately, some areas are being left behind more than others as our global and national economies continue to shift. Rural communities are among them. The people who have toiled in the coal mines of Kentucky and West Virginia, as well as in the paper and textile mills in Maine and western North Carolina, have not fared well in the changing economy. Likewise, the historically disenfranchised Native Americans in the Southwest, Latinos in the border colonias and the residents of the disaster-plagued Delta are struggling to survive. Our country needs to bring opportunity back to these regions and their people.Although rural America accounts for less than 20 percent of the country's overall population, 85 percent of persistent-poverty counties are outside of metro areas. Yet at the same time, there are so many examples of people and organizations doing good work; they just need support and the resources to go to scale. Special attention clearly is required, and that's why we formed the Rural Initiative

Motives and expectations for studying accounting: A case study of a polytechnic in New Zealand

New Zealand schools, universities, and institutes are known worldwide for their high standards. From 2007 to 2012 the international enrolments in postgraduate courses rose to 74.3%. In 2012, 47,668 international students enrolled with New Zealand’s funded tertiary education providers and 90,120 enrolled in 2013. This study aims to explore why international students choose to study accounting at a New Zealand polytechnic and what are their expectations of their study. To get answers to the above questions the qualitative research methods are used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted. The participants were mainly international students who were enrolled for an accounting course so that first-hand feedback could be received with an inductive approach. The findings from this research will help educational institutes to gain a better understanding of student’s expectations and accordingly tailor their qualifications. After conducting the interviews, few findings were related to the research literature. The research is still not complete as interviews are yet to be conducted with a couple of participants. As of now, the participants have expressed their interest of studying in New Zealand so that they can work in the economy. Since there are many small-medium sized enterprises, there is a good opportunity for accountants as most of their accounting needs are outsourced. After conducting sufficient interviews, data can be extracted to gain a precise understanding