A Growth Oriented Dual Income Tax

This paper proposes a growth-oriented dual-income tax by combining an allowance for corporate equity with a broadly defined flat tax on personal capital income. Revenue losses are compensated by an increase in the value added tax. The paper demonstrates the neutrality properties of the reform with respect to investment, firm financial decisions and organizational choice. Tax rates are chosen to prevent income shifting from labor to capital income. The reform decisively strengthens investment of domestically owned firms as well as home and foreign based multinationals and boosts savings. Simulations with a calibrated growth model for Switzerland indicate that the reform could add between 2 to 3 percent of GDP in the long run, depending on the specific scenario. Given the slow nature of capital accumulation, it also imposes considerable costs in the short run. We also consider a tax smoothing scenario to offset the intergenerationally redistributive effects.tax reform, investment, financial structure, growth

k-semisimple elements and pseudotori

Dietz C. k-semisimple elements and pseudotori. Bielefeld: Universität Bielefeld; 2013

A growth oriented dual income tax

This paper proposes a growth oriented dual income tax by combining an allowance for corporate equity with a broadly defined flat tax on personal capital income. Revenue losses are compensated by an increase in the value added tax. The paper demonstrates the neutrality properties of the reform with respect to investment, firm financial decisions and organizational choice. Tax rates are chosen to prevent income shifting from labor to capital income. The reform decisively strengthens investment of domestically owned firms as well as home and foreign based multinationals and boosts savings. Simulations with a calibrated growth model for Switzerland indicate that the reform could add between 4 to 5 percent of GNP in the long-run, depending on the specific scenario. Given the slow nature of capital accumulation, it imposes considerable costs in the short-run. We consider a tax smoothing scenario to offset the intergenerationally redistributive effect

A growth oriented dual income tax

This paper proposes a growth-oriented dual-income tax by combining an allowance for corporate equity with a broadly defined flat tax on personal capital income. Revenue losses are compensated by an increase in the value added tax. The paper demonstrates the neutrality properties of the reform with respect to investment, firm financial decisions and organizational choice. Tax rates are chosen to prevent income shifting from labor to capital income. The reform decisively strengthens investment of domestically owned firms as well as home and foreign based multinationals and boosts savings. Simulations with a calibrated growth model for Switzerland indicate that the reform could add between 2 to 3 percent of GDP in the long run, depending on the specific scenario. Given the slow nature of capital accumulation, it also imposes considerable costs in the short run. We also consider a tax smoothing scenario to offset the intergenerationally redistributive effects

Molecular engineering of chiral colloidal liquid crystals using DNA origami

Establishing precise control over the shape and the interactions of the microscopic building blocks is essential for design of macroscopic soft materials with novel structural, optical and mechanical properties. Here, we demonstrate robust assembly of DNA origami filaments into cholesteric liquid crystals, 1D supramolecular twisted ribbons and 2D colloidal membranes. The exquisite control afforded by the DNA origami technology establishes a quantitative relationship between the microscopic filament structure and the macroscopic cholesteric pitch. Furthermore, it also enables robust assembly of 1D twisted ribbons, which behave as effective supramolecular polymers whose structure and elastic properties can be precisely tuned by controlling the geometry of the elemental building blocks. Our results demonstrate the potential synergy between DNA origami technology and colloidal science, in which the former allows for rapid and robust synthesis of complex particles, and the latter can be used to assemble such particles into bulk materials

The climate beta

How does climate-change mitigation affect the aggregate consumption risk borne by future generations? In other words, what is the ‘climate beta’? In this paper we argue using a combination of theory and integrated assessment modelling that the climate beta is positive and close to unity for maturities of up to about one hundred years. This is because the positive effect on the climate beta of uncertainty about exogenous, emissions-neutral technological progress overwhelms the negative effect on the climate beta of uncertainty about the carbon-climate-response, particularly the climate sensitivity, and the damage intensity of warming. Mitigating climate change therefore has no insurance value to hedge the aggregate consumption risk borne by future generations. On the contrary, it increases that risk, which justifies a relatively high discount rate on the expected benefits of emissions reductions. However, the stream of undiscounted expected benefits is also increasing in the climate beta, and this dominates the discounting effect so that overall the net present value of carbon emissions abatement is increasing in the climate beta

The climate beta

Mitigation reduces the expected future damages from climate change,flbut how does it affect the aggregate risk borne by future generations?flThis raises the question of the ‘climate beta’, i.e., the elasticity of climatefldamages with respect to a change in aggregate consumption. Inflthis paper we show that the climate beta is positive if the main sourceflof uncertainty is exogenous, emissions-neutral technological progress,flimplying that mitigation has no hedging value. But these results areflreversed if the main source of uncertainty is related to the carbonclimate-flresponse and the damage intensity of warming. We then showflthat in the DICE integrated assessment model the climate beta is positivefland close to unity. In estimating the social cost of carbon, thisflwould justify using a relatively high rate to discount expected climatefldamages. However, the stream of undiscounted expected climate damagesflis also increasing in the climate beta. We show that this dominatesflthe discounting effect, so that the social cost of carbon is in fact largerflthan when discounting expected damages at the risk-free rate

The climate beta

Mitigation reduces the expected future damages from climate change,flbut how does it affect the aggregate risk borne by future generations?flThis raises the question of the ‘climate beta’, i.e., the elasticity of climatefldamages with respect to a change in aggregate consumption. Inflthis paper we show that the climate beta is positive if the main sourceflof uncertainty is exogenous, emissions-neutral technological progress,flimplying that mitigation has no hedging value. But these results areflreversed if the main source of uncertainty is related to the carbonclimate-flresponse and the damage intensity of warming. We then showflthat in the DICE integrated assessment model the climate beta is positivefland close to unity. In estimating the social cost of carbon, thisflwould justify using a relatively high rate to discount expected climatefldamages. However, the stream of undiscounted expected climate damagesflis also increasing in the climate beta. We show that this dominatesflthe discounting effect, so that the social cost of carbon is in fact largerflthan when discounting expected damages at the risk-free rate