Rationality, irrationality and economic cognition

This paper contrasts the modern use of the assumption that rationality as reflected in simple models of utility and profit maximization guides individual economic behaviour to literature both between 1890 and 1930 which sharply challenged the use of such an assumption and later literature in economic psychology from Herbert Simon onwards which sees economic (and other) cognitive processes in different ways. Some of the earlier literature proposed objective and operational notions of rationality based on the availability of information, ability to reason (cognitive skills), and even morality. Learning played a major role in individuals achieving what was referred to as complete rationality. I draw on these ideas, and suggest that developing models in which economic agents have degrees (or levels) of economic cognition which are endogenously determined could both change the perceptions economists have on policy matters and incorporate findings from recent economic psychology literature. This would remove the issue of whether economic agents are dichotomously rational or irrational, and instead introduce continuous metrics of cognition into economic thinking. Such an approach also poses the two policy issues of whether raising levels of economic cognition should be an objective of policy and whether policy interventions motivated by departures from full economic cognition should be analyzed

Environmental Consideration in Tax Policy Design

This paper discusses how environmental considerations will affect tax policy in the decades ahead. It argues that in the future, interactions between tax and environmental policy are likely to go well beyond recent discussion of double dividend issues and internalization of environmental externalities via tax policy will be the goal, which inevitably will involve the particular rather than the general. As a result, notions of neutrality which dominate current thinking on tax design will come under challenge; and in ways which will go well beyond current discussion of special treatment for particular goods and industries on environmental grounds. Special treatment of methods of production, more so than of goods, will be the name of the game. Moreover, the informational requirements of such an approach to tax policy are likely to be large. The paper concludes by pointing out that if environmental quality, as many suppose, is a luxury good with income elasticity of demand greater than one, then high income households will gain disproportionately from internalization of the externalities at issue. This may fuel pressures for more redistribution elsewhere in the tax system than is currently the case.Tax policy design

Recent Regional Agreements: Why so many, why so much Variance in Form, why Coming so fast, and where are they Headed?

Recent years have seen a sharp growth in the number of regional agreements both concluded and under negotiation. This paper attempts to document and discuss this growth focusing on US, EU, Chinese, Indian and other agreements. The form, coverage, and content of these agreements varies considerably from case to case. The paper asks why so many, why the variation in form, and why the recent acceleration. Implications for the trading system are discussed in a final section.

Trade and Environment Beyond Singapore

This paper discusses the likely evolution of the trade and environment issue in the World Trade Organization after the upcoming ministerial meeting in Singapore this December. It makes a number of points. Progress within the GATT/WTO on this issue looks likely to be slow and painfully incremental rather than bold as environmental groups would wish to see. The paper also argues that despite (and beyond) Singapore, one has to go further than the GATT/WTO to see the potential evolution of the trade and environment issue. Developments seem likely to be driven in the next few years as much by factors outside the GATT/WTO as well as within it, as new global environmental arrangements, some with potentially large trade implications (such as carbon emission limitation agreements), emerge.

Liberalization in China's Key Service Sectors Following WTO Accession: Some Scenarios and Issues of Measurement

This paper documents and assesses the significance of the policy changes in China that WTO accession implies in 3 key service categories (banking, insurance, and telecoms), asking whether it is likely they will really be fully implemented in their entirety as undertaken at signature in 2002. While it would seem that China will have extraordinarily open markets for these services by 2007 (and for banking, perhaps in the world), the starting point for implementing these policy changes seems so highly restricted that doubts have been raised about the feasibility of implementing such changes over such a short time even if threats of eventual retaliation from WTO partners speeds things along. WTO members are monitoring the implementation of China's WTO commitments, and following dispute settlement might retaliate in the future were these agreed changes not to be implemented. I discuss what scenarios this liberalization might follow, and ask whether these commitments can really be implemented as undertaken.

Pitfalls in the Use of Ad valorem Equivalent Representations of the Trade Impacts of Domestic Policies

International Relations/Trade,

Puzzles Over International Taxation of Cross Border Flows of Capital Income

I discuss the tax treatment of transborder capital income, focussing on prevailing arrangements rather than de novo design of optimal tax arrangements. These comprise unilateral reliefs from double taxation under credit or exemption systems, and treaty reliefs (largely following the OECD model treaty) which jointly lower withholding tax rates on interest, dividends, and royalties in both host and source countries. I suggest that these arrangements involve both seemingly non-strategic unilateral actions and cooperative arrangements which are difficult to reconcile both with tax competition literature and with national interest. I pose four puzzles in this regard. The first is that from a national welfare point of view, the unilateral reliefs in use seem inferior to no relief since with competitive markets investors equate the private return on investments at home and abroad, while tax revenues largely accrue to the foreign government. Private returns are equated, but national returns are not. The second is that tax treaties only have lump sum effects between national governments if the more common credit arrangements of unilateral reliefs apply and if tax rates are similar in host and source countries (approximately the OECD situation). This raises the issue of why governments negotiate them. The third is the sharp contrast to international treaty arrangements for goods flows under the WTO; and the fourth is the absence of side payments in tax treaties. The picture emerging is that making sense of present arrangements from a national welfare point of view and in terms of efficient instrument design seems difficult. The gap relative to optimal tax considerations also seems large.

Panel 1: The new global division of labour

Arbeitsteilung, Arbeitsorganisation, Outsourcing, Lohnfertigung, Weltwirtschaft, Division of labour, Work organization, Offshore assembly, World economy

Pitfalls in the Use of Ad valorem Equivalent Representations of the Trade Impacts of Domestic Policies

Numerical simulation exercises to analyze the impacts of potential changes in non-tariff policies commonly use ad valorem equivalent tariff treatment even though estimated impacts using explicit model representation and ad valorem equivalent treatments will differ. The difficulty for modellers is that the detail and subtlety embodied in a wide array of policy interventions means that some simplification is appealing, but no meaningful general propositions exist in the theoretical literature as to the sign or size of the differences in predicted effects. All that can seemingly be done is to investigate the differences case by case, but even here the findings are sensitive both to the particular form of model used as well as the model parameterization employed. As a result, there is relatively little in the literature that provides guidance as to how serious the pitfalls may be, and how misleading ad valorem tariff equivalent treatment is. Here I draw on three examples of numerical modelling where explicit representation of policy interventions are used. The picture that emerges is one of large quantitative and even qualitative differences in predicted impacts. These examples suggest that where interventions differ from a tariff, ad valorem representation should be undertaken in numerical trade modelling only with substantial caveats.