Using the False Claims Act to Remedy Tax-Expenditure Fraud

The federal False Claims Act (FCA) may be a tool for combating fraudulent claims regarding tax expenditures. The FCA has been used to protect the public fisc by imposing liability upon anyone who makes a false or fraudulent claim relating to an expenditure of federal funds. A substantial share of government spending is implemented through tax credits and deductions granted to individuals and entities for taking particular actions promoted by the tax code—so-called “tax expenditures.” Funds subsidized by such tax expenditures can themselves be the objects of fraud. For example, a taxpayer could be defrauded of retirement funds that the government has indirectly subsidized through tax deductions granted to the defrauded taxpayer. This Article explores how the FCA might be invoked to combat fraud that targets the recipients of tax expenditures, as well as doctrinal counterarguments to such an application. We touch on the potential breadth of the FCA’s reach insofar as it encompasses such claims, as well as the prospect of using other whistleblower mechanisms to achieve similar results

Long Term Trends in Resource Exergy Consumption and Useful Work Supplies in the UK, 1900-2000

Our aim is to explain historical economic growth in the UK economy by introducing an empirical measure for useful work derived from natural resource energy inputs into an augmented production function. To do this, we estimate the long-term (1900-2000) trends in resource exergy supply and conversion to useful work in the United Kingdom. The exergy resources considered included domestic consumption of coal, crude oil and petroleum products, natural gas, nuclear and renewable resources (including biomass). All flows of exergy were allocated to an end use such as providing heat, light, transport, human and animal work and electrical power. For each end-use we estimated a time dependent efficiency of conversion from exergy to useful work. The 3-factor production function (of capital, labour and useful work) is able to reproduce the historic trajectory of economic growth without recourse to any exogenous assumptions of technological progress or total factor productivity. The results indicate that useful work derived from natural resource exergy is an important factor of production.exergy, energy, efficiency, economic growth, United Kingdom

The impact of remanufacturing in the economy

Very few durable goods are recovered at the end of their useful lives. However, this situation could reverse with the development of a stronger remanufacturing industry in the economy. This paper evaluates the impact of remanufacturing in a hypothetical situation where remanufacturing holds a significant share of the economy, presently dominated by the original manufacturing industries. It would have direct impacts on the demand for several inputs. We adapt the inter-industry input-output framework with the development of a methodology to consider these changes. Subsequently, we apply the model to the 30-sector aggregation of the French input-output national data to illustrate the nethod and to evaluate the impact that remanufacturing may have on the economy. The analysis assumes that remanufacturing sectors substitute labor and transport services for the usual inputs such as raw materials and semi-finished goods. We find that remanufacturing may satisfy the same final demand from all sectors requiring fewer intermediate resources, with proportionally higher demand of labor

Filling Gaps in Incomplete Contracts: An Economic Theory of Default Rules

The legal rules of contracts and corporations can be divided into two distinct classes. The larger class consists of default rules that parties can contract around by prior agreement, while the smaller, but important, class consists of immutable rules that parties cannot change by contractual agreement. Default rules fill the gaps in incomplete contracts; they govern unless the parties contract around them. Immutable rules cannot be contracted around; they govern even if the parties attempt to contract around them. For example, under the Uniform Commercial Code (U.C.C.) the duty to act in good faith is an immutable part of any contract, while the warranty of merchantability is simply a default rule that parties can waive by agreement. Similarly, most corporate statutes require that stockholders elect directors annually but allow the articles of incorporation to contract around the default rule of straight voting. Statutory language such as [u]nless otherwise provided in the certificate of incorporation or [u]nless otherwise unambiguously indicated makes it easy to identify statutory default, but common-law precedents can also be divided into the default and immutable camps. For example, the common-law holding of Peevyhouse v. Garland Coal & Mining Co., which limited damages to diminution in value, could be contractually reversed by prospective parties. In contrast, the common law prerequisite of consideration is largely an immutable rule that parties cannot contractually abrogate

Unequal Racial Access to Kidney Transplantation

Access to medical care is an issue of acute and increasing importance in the United States, a country in which the most promising of ground-breaking technologies may be available to only the privileged few. Although debate about the problem of unequal access to medical care typically centers on financial obstacles to advanced therapies and the obvious inequity of allowing patients\u27 ability to pay to drive treatment decisions, issues of equitable access for patients of both genders and all racial and ethnic backgrounds increasingly have come into focus. These concerns about equitable access animate the ongoing debate about how government should regulate the transplantation of kidneys. More than 100,000 people in the United States suffer from kidney failure-what doctors call end-stage renal disease (ESRD). While kidney failure may be treated with dialysis,\u27 kidney transplantation is the preferred treatment: studies show that transplant recipients are more likely to return to work, avoid hospitalization, and enjoy a greater sense of well-being than patients on dialysis. Kidney transplants constitute more than three-fourths of the solid organ transplants performed in this country and have success rates routinely as high as eighty percent. A severe shortage of transplantable kidneys, however, limits the availability of this preferred treatment.\u27 For example, in 1990, while more than 18,000 Americans were registered on waiting lists, fewer than 8200 received renal transplants. Federal regulations control the allocation of scarce donated kidneys among prospective recipients. Since 1972, Medicare has covered the costs of virtually all kidney transplants. To qualify for Medicare reimbursement, transplanting hospitals must abide by rules promulgated by the federal Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN). Current OPTN policies for cadaveric kidney allocation give strong preference to potential recipients who are genetically similar to the donor as determined by the identification of antigens located on the surface of cells. For example, if a harvested kidney has all the same antigens as a potential recipient on the waiting list, then that patient will receive the kidney-even if other dialysis patients have waited longer for a transplant

Unequal Racial Access to Kidney Transplantation

Access to medical care is an issue of acute and increasing importance in the United States, a country in which the most promising of ground-breaking technologies may be available to only the privileged few. Although debate about the problem of unequal access to medical care typically centers on financial obstacles to advanced therapies and the obvious inequity of allowing patients\u27 ability to pay to drive treatment decisions, issues of equitable access for patients of both genders and all racial and ethnic backgrounds increasingly have come into focus. These concerns about equitable access animate the ongoing debate about how government should regulate the transplantation of kidneys. More than 100,000 people in the United States suffer from kidney failure-what doctors call end-stage renal disease (ESRD). While kidney failure may be treated with dialysis,\u27 kidney transplantation is the preferred treatment: studies show that transplant recipients are more likely to return to work, avoid hospitalization, and enjoy a greater sense of well-being than patients on dialysis. Kidney transplants constitute more than three-fourths of the solid organ transplants performed in this country and have success rates routinely as high as eighty percent. A severe shortage of transplantable kidneys, however, limits the availability of this preferred treatment.\u27 For example, in 1990, while more than 18,000 Americans were registered on waiting lists, fewer than 8200 received renal transplants. Federal regulations control the allocation of scarce donated kidneys among prospective recipients. Since 1972, Medicare has covered the costs of virtually all kidney transplants. To qualify for Medicare reimbursement, transplanting hospitals must abide by rules promulgated by the federal Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN). Current OPTN policies for cadaveric kidney allocation give strong preference to potential recipients who are genetically similar to the donor as determined by the identification of antigens located on the surface of cells. For example, if a harvested kidney has all the same antigens as a potential recipient on the waiting list, then that patient will receive the kidney-even if other dialysis patients have waited longer for a transplant

Cost shares, output elasticities, and substitutability constraints

The equilibrium conditions for an economic system that produces output with several factors of production and which is subject to technological constraints are derived. Optimization of either output minus cost or integrated utility yields the conditions that output elasticities must be equal to a modification of the usual factor cost shares, where shadow prices due to the constraints add to factor prices. In a model, where capital, labor and energy (exergy) are the factors of production, the technological constraints are identified as limits to capacity utilization and automation. The shadow prices depend on the output elasticities. These elasticities are determined for Germany, Japan and the USA by econometric estimations of energy-dependent production functions that are derived from the twice differentiability requirement and the law of diminishing returns