Financial Transaction Tax: Small is Beautiful

The case for taxing financial transactions merely to raise more revenues from the financial sector is not particularly strong. Better alternatives to tax the financial sector are likely to be available. However, a tax on financial transactions could be justified in order to limit socially undesirable transactions when more direct means of doing so are unavailable for political or practical reasons. Some financial transactions are indeed likely to do more harm than good, especially when they contribute to the systemic risk of the financial system. However, such a financial transaction tax should be very small, much smaller than the negative externalities in question, because it is a blunt instrument that also drives out socially useful transactions. There is a case for taxing over-the-counter derivative transactions at a somewhat higher rate than exchange-based derivative transactions. More targeted remedies to drive out socially undesirable transactions should be sought in parallel, which would allow, after their implementation, to reduce or even phase out financial transaction taxes.transaction tax, Tobin tax, financial transactions, global financial crisis, financial regulation

Risk, Resources, and Education: Public Versus Private Financing of Higher Education

The paper develops a public education scheme that takes aspects of uncertainty in private educational investments explicitly into account. The social merits of public education schemes are related to the lack of markets in which students can insure against educational risks. A case is made for tuition fees that depend on expected returns of investments in education. The consideration of uncertainty provides a neglected link between educational choice, resource endowment, and productivity growth, which may serve to redefine the public role of education financing. Copyright 2002, International Monetary Fund

Cyclical Dimensions of Labour Mobility after EU Enlargement

This paper explores the influence of the economic cycle on labour mobility within the EU, focusing on the likely impact of the present economic crisis. To do so, we use an econometrically calibrated simulation and a case study of Ireland. We find that, in the short run, the crisis is likely to lead to a somewhat lower stock of migrants from the new member states in the EU15 than would have been the case without the crisis on account of diminished job opportunities for migrants. By contrast, in the longer run the crisis might lead to a moderate increase in migration from some of the new member states compared to what would have been the case without the crisis. The latter is driven by the observation that the crisis may have undermined the economic growth model of some of the new member states, thereby slowing down their economic catching-up process.labour mobility; economic cycle; crisis; European Union

Radiative Corrections for Pion Polarizability Experiments

We use the semi-analytical program RCFORGV to evaluate radiative corrections to one-photon radiative emission in the high-energy scattering of pions in the Coulomb field of a nucleus with atomic number Z. It is shown that radiative corrections can simulate a pion polarizability effect. The average effect was estimated for pion energies 40-600 GeV. We also study the range of applicability of the equivalent photon approximation in describing one-photon radiative emission.Comment: 11 pages (LaTex), 6 figures, 1 table. No changes in the paper. New submission because old files are corrupted in arXi

The Threat of Capital Drain: A Rationale for Public Banks?

This paper yields a rationale for why subsidized public banks may be desirable from a regional perspective in a financially integrated economy. We present a model with credit rationing and heterogeneous regions in which public banks prevent a capital drain from poorer to richer regions by subsidizing local depositors, for example, through a public guarantee. Under some conditions, cooperative banks can perform the same function without any subsidization; however, they may be crowded out by public banks. We also discuss the impact of the political structure on the emergence of public banks in a political-economy setting and the role of interregional mobility