Corporate Income Taxes and Labor: An Investigation of Empirical Evidence

With the highest top marginal corporate tax rate among OECD nations and the third-highest in the world at 35 percent, it is not surprising that policymakers have long evinced a desire to lower the U.S. federal corporate income tax rate. Reducing the corporate income tax rate has implications for a wide-range of outcomes – from federal revenues to foreign direct investment, but the effects of such a change on workers is less understood. This paper examines the empirical literature on the effect of corporate income taxes on labor, specifically on employment and worker incomes. In general, empirical work with the most robust results and controlling for factors of influence outside of corporate income taxes generally have an elasticity of employment with respect to the corporate income tax rate of between -0.2 and -0.4, with a wage/income elasticity near -0.5. In the context of recent tax reform discussions that propose a rate reduction between 30% to 57%, that would imply employment gains between 6% to 22% and wage increases between 15% to 28%

Use of inedible wheat residues from the KSC-CELSS breadboard facility for production of fungal cellulase

Cellulose and xylan (a hemicellulose) comprise 50 percent of inedible wheat residue (which is 60 percent of total wheat biomass) produced in the Kennedy Space Center Closed Ecological Life Support System (CELSS) Breadboard Biomass Production Chamber (BPC). These polysaccharides can be converted by enzymatic hydrolysis into useful monosaccharides, thus maximizing the use of BPC volume and energy, and minimizing waste material to be treated. The evaluation of CELSS-derived wheat residues for production for cellulase enzyme complex by Trichoderma reesei and supplemental beta-glucosidase by Aspergillus phoenicis is in progress. Results to date are given

The New Protectionism and the American Common Market

For nearly two centuries, the U.S. Constitution through the dormant Commerce Clause has protected the American common market from protectionist commercial stale regulations and taxes. During the past two terms, however, the U.S. Supreme Court created a new exception to the dormant Commerce Clause for protectionist state and local taxes and regulations that favor public rather than private entities. In this Article, we describe this “New Protectionism” and argue that the Court\u27s embrace of it is profoundly misguided. As we document, there is no material difference, economically or constitutionally, between public protectionism and private protectionism. As illustrated by the variety of ways in which government and private enterprise interact, there is no coherent distinction between public and private activities, and ensuing efforts to draw such a line will only serve to embroil the courts in tasks for which it is ill suited. Worse, this new exception only encourages stale and focal governments to engage in protectionism in a variety of contexts, such as education and local economic development, in which the dangers to national economic union are paramount. Coupled with the Court\u27s recently declared unwillingness to subject nondiscriminatory regulations and loses to minimal judicial scrutiny, this endorsement of public protectionism threatens to emasculate the constitutional protections for the American common market and should therefore be rethought by the Court or legislatively superseded by Congress. Reprinted by permission of the publisher

Molecular stratification and characterization of clear cell renal cell carcinoma

It is estimated that there will be 58,240 new diagnoses of kidney cancer in 2010. Most cases will be clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) and have little information as to how their disease will progress. This diversity of disease natural history is especially noteworthy in a disease so well characterized by the inactivation of the von Hippel Lindau (VHL) tumor suppressor and resulting stabilization of Hypoxia Inducible Factors (HIF). Previous studies had suggested the presence of two or more clusters in ccRCC. Based on the nonuniformity within the disease's natural progression and previous research, we hypothesized that distinct inherent molecular subclasses of ccRCC must exist and, therefore, sought to define and characterize them. In fact, two robust subtypes of ccRCC were identified, designated ccA and ccB. These subtypes are associated with survival by multivariate analysis, conferring a median survival of 8.6 years versus 2 years, respectively. We postulated that the underlying molecular pathways within the data would explain the survival difference. ccA tumors overexpress angiogenesis, hypoxia, and metabolism pathways, common pathways characterizing ccRCC tumors. In contrast, ccB tumors overexpress more aggressive genes related to epithelial to mesenchymal transition, cell cycle, and Wnt targets. VHL analysis and HIF immunohistochemistry suggests that neither appear to be driving subtype differences. To understand what is causing the differences, underlying genetic changes were analyzed. Both subtypes show deletion of chromosome 3p, location of VHL, in greater than 75% of tumors, corresponding with previous research and suggesting a common initiating tumorigenic event. Overall, copy number patterns look very similar between the subtypes; however, more ccB tumors show deletion of chromosomes 9 and 14, which previous studies have shown to correlate with decreased survival. Additionally, ccA tumors have mutations in a number of histone modification genes, suggesting that epigenetic modification may play a role in subtype differences. Finally, a biomarker panel of 120 probes was defined to distinguish ccA and ccB tumors. This panel is the basis of an assay using FFPE tissue for clinical use. This assay will classify tumors into the inherent subtypes identified by this study, with prognostic impact and potentially predictive import.Doctor of Philosoph

Neurocognitive Development of Risk Aversion from Early Childhood to Adulthood

Human adults tend to avoid risk. In behavioral economic studies, risk aversion is manifest as a preference for sure gains over uncertain gains. However, children tend to be less averse to risk than adults. Given that many of the brain regions supporting decision-making under risk do not reach maturity until late adolescence or beyond it is possible that mature risk-averse behavior may emerge from the development of decision-making circuitry. To explore this hypothesis, we tested 5- to 8-year-old children, 14- to 16-year-old adolescents, and young adults in a risky-decision task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data acquisition. To our knowledge, this is the youngest sample of children in an fMRI decision-making task. We found a number of decision-related brain regions to increase in activation with age during decision-making, including areas associated with contextual memory retrieval and the incorporation of prior outcomes into the current decision-making strategy, e.g., insula, hippocampus, and amygdala. Further, children who were more risk-averse showed increased activation during decision-making in ventromedial prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum. Our findings indicate that the emergence of adult levels of risk aversion co-occurs with the recruitment of regions supporting decision-making under risk, including the integration of prior outcomes into current decision-making behavior. This pattern of results suggests that individual differences in the development of risk aversion may reflect differences in the maturation of these neural processes