Real exchange rate misalignment and redistribution

Exchange Rate;Export;Income Distribution

The incidence of interest withholding taxes: Evidence from the LDC loan markets

Taxation;Interest Rate

Migration and income transfers in the presence of labor quality externalities

In this paper, a worker's productivity is assumed to depend on his own quality and on the average quality of other workers in the same country. The external effects associated with worker quality give rise to increasing returns to average worker quality. As a result, free migration generally reduces world output. Within each country, social benefits that induce low quality workers to leave the labor force can increase national income. Moreover, the operation of such a benefit scheme financed by a proportional income tax can increase everybody's net-of-tax income. The political economy of a system of transfers within a country is analyzed. In particular, the level of transfers is assumed to be determined by popular vote. In this setting, small migration flows can bring about large changes in transfer levels and in labor participation rates. The anticipation of migration generally reduces the level of transfers to the unemployed.Labour Market;Migration;Productivity;National Income;Quality;labour economics

International trade and migration in the presence of sector-specific labor quality pricing distortions

In one of two sectors, there are labor quality pricing distortions in the sense that labor obtains the average rather than marginal product. This may be due to a failure on the part of employers to observe individual labor quality or due to an income redistributing union. Relatively low quality workers are in equilibrium employed in the sector characterized by average productivity wage setting. International differences in the quality distributions of the labor force are shown to be a source of comparative advantage and hence a determinant of international trade. The country that imports the good produced by relatively low quality workers may lose from international trade. Immigration by low quality workers may equally lower the welfare of a country's original inhabitants. As a result, a country generally benefits from restricting the immigration of very low quality workers.International Trade;Migration;international economics

National tax policies towards product-innovating multinational enterprises

Multinational Companies;Corporate Tax

Intrafirm Information Transfer and Wages

Technical and other information may be a firm s most important asset.To benefit from its information, however, a firm has to reveal it to one or more employees.Better informed employees produce more, but at the same time they demand higher wages to prevent them from joining a business competitor or starting their own firm.This paper examines the strategic transfer of information by a firm to its employees over their employment lifes.Generally, the firm is shown to transfer additional information to its employees each period of the employment relationship, while wages rise accordingly.An implication of the model is that more senior workers are more productive and receive higher wages because they have better access to the firm s vital informati-on.business information;employees;wages;management science

The Dual Role of Money and Optimal Financial Taxes

This paper reconsiders the optimal taxation of money and other financial assets.The optimal tax formulae reflect that money provides liquidity services and is a saving vehicle.In fact, it is useful to reformulate the optimal tax problem to allow for separate taxes on the liquidity and saving functions of money.This reformulation allows one to better understand the original optimal tax problem.The possible optimality of a subsidy on borrowing, for instance, can be explained if it is noted that the theoretically correct measure of savings reflects that money as well as nonmonetary assets can serve as saving vehicles.money;savings;taxation

Time preference and international tax competition

Taxation;Capital Movements;Preferences;Models

The Taxation Implicit in Two-Tiered Exchange Rate Systems

A two-tiered exchange rate system can be interpreted as a set of separate taxes on money and other financial assets.If the official two-tiered exchange rate system coexists with a black market for foreign exchange, then there is an implicit taxation of international goods trade as well.This paper presents some evidence on the tax rates and tax revenues implicit in the exchange rate systems of the Bahamas (from 1978 to 1995), the Dominican Republic (from 1970 to 1984) and South Africa (from 1973 to 1995).Only the Bahamas appears to have received positive tax revenues from the implicit taxation of international capital flows, while only South Africa is estimated to have obtained positive tax revenues from the implicit taxation of international goods trade.taxation;exchange rate