Future-, outside-, and inside-focused development paths

The FOI model developed by the authors measures the future, outside and inside potential of a country. With the help of the model the OECD countries are evaluated, and four typical clusters are found which can represent four typical development models within the club of developed economies

Mid-term effects of the flat rate personal income tax in Hungary

The objective of the paper is to examine whether the advantages and disadvantages mentioned in the literature of the flat rate income tax could be observed in Hungary. Personal income tax data provided by the Hungarian National Tax and Customs Administration was used to check the arguments. It was found that the flat tax indeed favours richer taxpayers, and because of the family tax credits, it heavily favours families with children. Tax revenues declined as tax rates were cut, while the GDP growth rate was close to stagnant. Both of these developments go against the expectations of the flat tax supporters, although it has to be mentioned that the changes were made in the midst of a European- and world-wide depression, which could have distorted the pure effects of the new tax code. Although in many countries the flat rate tax was a positive signal for investors boosting foreign direct investments, the Hungarian government introduced extra taxes on some of the transnational companies in order to balance the budget (and compensate for the lost personal income tax revenues), which meant that there was a decline in the mood of the investors. There is some indication that some illegal activities are shifted to the legal domain: the ratio of those tax reporters who earned an annual income of HUF 2 million or higher has gone from 62.5% to 66.6% in the period of 2010-12

Választási ciklusok és azok makrogazdasági hatásai

The paper dicusses the case of political business cycles in Hungary between 1990 and 2010

The Effect of the Tax System as an Institutional Factor on the Business Structure in Europe (Chapter 7)

This chapter focuses on the influence of tax systems and taxation rules on the firm structure of the 28 European Union member economies. It is argued that higher taxes and more complex tax rules lead to smaller firms, and that, on the other hand reduces macroeconomic perfor-mance. It is found that the firm size and corporate tax rates are negatively correlated in case of medium-sized (R=-0.4; p=0.03) and large (R=-0.41; p=0.03) firms. Indications were found that higher transaction costs caused by taxation lead to smaller firms, as a significant negative correlation was found between the number of hours per year needed to administer tax pay-ments, and the share of large firms (R=-0.41 & p=0.03), and also between KPMG’s comment length (an indicator for tax system complexity) and the share of medium-sized firms’ turnover from the total turnover (R=-0.39 & p=0.045). More complicated tax rules might also cause a smaller proportion of firms to grow quicker, but the significance level of these relationships is not very convincing

Hungarian Energy Prices in an OECD Comparison

The goal of the study is to assess the effect of the utility cost reductions announced by the Hungarian government in 2012 on Hungarian energy prices. The effects are discussed in an OECD comparison. It is concluded that the government price control has resulted in a 15% steeper price reduction occurring 5-7 quarters earlier, compared to other OECD countries. The price reductions saved around 202 billion HUF for Hungarian households in 2014, which was around 0.63% of the GDP. If prices are compared to the monthly average wages however, household energy prices are still high in Hungary. One of the costs of the reduction in household energy prices was an increase in energy prices for industry: the industry/household price ratio is highest among OECD countries in the case of natural gas, and third highest for electricity

Characteristics of the Dual Model among the OECD Countries - an FOI Model Analysis

Deciding on the development path of the economy has been a delicate question in economic policy, not least because of the trade-off effects which immediately worsen certain economic indicators as steps are taken to improve on others. The paper offers help to decide on such policy dilemmas, based on an analysis conducted among OECD countries with the FOI model (focusing on the future, outside and inside potentials). Several development models can be deduced with this method, from which only the dual model is discussed in detail. The dual model implies a development strategy focused on the attraction of outside resources, the instruments of which are also presented. The findings presented in the paper are part of a large OTKA (Hungarian Scientific Research Fund) study, which develops step by the step the methodology of the FOI model and discusses all of the development models found among OECD countries