Would banning firearms reduce murder and suicide? A review of international evidence

The world abounds in instruments with which people can kill each other. Is the widespread availability of one of these instruments, firearms, a crucial determinant of the incidence of murder? Or do patterns of murder and/or violent crime reflect basic socio-economic and/or cultural factors to which the mere availability of one particular form of weaponry is irrelevant? This article examines a broad range of international data that bear on the question whether widespread firearm access is an important contributing factor in murder and/or suicide. Our conclusion from the available data is that suicide, murder and violent crime rates are determined by basic social, economic and/or cultural factors with the availability of any particular one of the world's myriad deadly instrument being irrelevant

The Raman Spectra of CH3CF3 and CCl2CF2

Because of the interest attached to ethane and ethane-like molecules in connection with the question of free rotation of the CX3 groups with respect to each other, it was considered that the Raman spectrum of CH3CF3 might yield additional information on this point. Inasmuch as the spectrum of the liquid can be conveniently photographed only at low temperatures (b.p. about -40°), the determination of the polarization of the scattered light would be experimentally very difficult and was not attempted. The fact that the frequencies associated with the CF3 group will be considerably different in magnitude from those of the CH3 group may, in the analysis, compensate for the lack of data on polarization. Only the results of the experiments are presented here; the assignment of the frequencies will be given when completed. The Raman spectrum of the ethylene-like molecule CCl2=CF2 was photographed at room temperature with the substance in the liquid state, and the observed shifts are presented here

Does the Tax System Favor Investment in High-Tech or Smoke-Stack Industries?

When tax rates vary by asset, a "hidden" industrial policy may aid industries that invest in a certain mix of assets. In this paper, we examine whether differential use of depreciable assets gives rise to differential tax treatment of high technology industries relative to other industries. First, we calculate the total effective tax rate on a marginal investment in each of 34 assets. Next, using these asset-specific tax rates and weighting by the use of these assets in each of 73 different industries, we calculate total effective tax rates at the industry level. We find considerable variation within the high-tech sector and within the more traditional sector, but for the case of a taxable firm with a given debt/equity ratio, we do not find any systematic differences between overall rates in the two sectors.

Tax Neutrality and Intangible Capital

Many studies measure capital stocks and effective tax rates for different industries, but they consider only tangible assets such as equipment, structures, inventories, and land. Some of these studies also have estimated that the welfare cost of tax differences among these assets under prior law is about 10 billion per year or 13 percent of all corporate income tax revenue. Since the investment tax credit was available only for equipment, its repeal raises the effective rate of taxation of equipment toward that of other assets and virtually eliminates this welfare cost. However, firms also own intangible assets such as trademarks, copyrights, patents, a good reputation, or general production expertise. This paper provides alternative measures of the intangible capital stock, and it investigates implications for distortions caused by taxes. The existence of intangible capital markedly alters welfare cost calculations. Investments in advertising and R&D are expensed, so the effective rate of tax on these assets is less than that on equipment under prior law. With large differences between these assets and other tangible assets, we find that the welfare cost measure under prior law increases to 13 billion per year. Repeal of the investment credit taxes equipment more like other tangible assets but less like intangible assets. The welfare cost still falls, to about $7 billion per year, but it is no longer "virtually eliminated." With additional sources of intangible capital, credit repeal could actually increase welfare costs. Finally, however, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 not only repeals the investment tax credit but reduces rates as well. Efficiency always increases in this model because the taxation of tangible assets is reduced toward that of intangible assets.

AGRICULTURE, TRADE AND STRUCTURAL POLICY UNDER NAFTA AND WTO

International Relations/Trade,

Uncertain Parameter Values and the Choice Among Policy Options

In this paper, we use tax policy choices to illustrate and investigate the more general problem of using uncertain parameter values in models to evaluate policy choices. We show, for this tax example, how debate on an elasticity parameter translates into a debate about policy choices, andvice versa. To construct this example, we suppose that the choice among four particular tax reform options is based on a single measure of efficiency gain. We show how this gain from each reform depends upon the elasticity of saving with respect to the net rate of return. Within quite narrow and reasonable bounds for the elasticity parameter, we find regions in which each of three different tax reforms turns out to dominate the others.

Economic Efficiency in Recent Tax Reform History: Policy Reversals or Consistent Improvements?

The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 reduced personal marginal tax rates and provided significant business tax breaks. Subsequent changes through 1985 cut back on business allowances. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 reduced marginal rates again, but added significantly to business taxes. Was there any unifying theme to these tax changes, or do they represent frequent changes in course for tax policy? This paper uses a general equilibrium model capable of second- best analysis to investigate the net effects on efficiency of each of these changes in capital income taxation. Under the new view that dividend taxes are unimportant investment disincentives, there is no set of other parameters in the model for which these changes generate improvements in efficiency. Under the old view that dividend taxes are important, however, these changes all increase efficiency for a wide range of values for other parameters in the model.

Velocity in Lorentz-Violating Fermion Theories

We consider the role of the velocity in Lorentz-violating fermionic quantum theory, especially emphasizing the nonrelativistic regime. Information about the velocity will be important for the kinematical analysis of scattering and other problems. Working within the minimal standard model extension, we derive new expressions for the velocity. We find that generic momentum and spin eigenstates may not have well-defined velocities. We also demonstrate how several different techniques may be used to shed light on different aspects of the problem. A relativistic operator analysis allows us to study the behavior of the Lorentz-violating Zitterbewegung. Alternatively, by studying the time evolution of Gaussian wave packets, we find that there are Lorentz-violating modifications to the wave packet spreading and the spin structure of the wave function.Comment: 24 page