4,654 research outputs found
The International Trade Commission's Assessment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership: Main Findings and Implications
In May of 2016 the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) issued its assessment of the impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This paper highlights the main findings of the ITC report and explains their derivation and implications. It also examines several issues that were explicitly excluded from analysis in the ITC report
A Voluntary Default Savings Plan: An Effective Supplement to Social Security
This paper outlines a proposal for a default savings plan that is intended to provide an important supplement to retirement income for the bottom half of the workforce, most of whom have little other than Social Security to support themselves in retirement at present. Under the proposal, workers would make a default contribution of 3.0 percent on annual wages up to 8,000 and then phasing down to zero with earnings above 40,000
The Housing Crash Recession and the Case for a Third Stimulus
This paper makes the case for a third stimulus package to in the face of economic indicators signaling that the economy is in a deeper downturn than was expected based on previous projections. Specifically, the report calls for an employer tax-credit for extending health care coverage and another per worker employer tax credit for increasing paid time off from work. The author also makes the case for a housing policy centered on the stabilization of prices in non-bubble and deflated markets rather than applying the same efforts on markets that remain at bubble inflated levels. Finally, the paper argues that the dollar must be allowed to fall in order to adjust trade imbalances that are compounding the U.S. economic crisis caused by the collapse of the housing market
First Time Underwater: The Impact of the First-time Homebuyer Tax Credit
One of the items that Congress added to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, President Obama's stimulus package, was a first-time homebuyer tax credit. The tax credit gave people buying their first home, or who had not been homeowners for at least three years, a tax credit equal to 10 percent of the purchase price of the home, up to 16.2 billion
The Impact of Exempting the Pharmaceutical Industry from Patent Reviews
This paper analyzes the impact of an amendment to Senate Bill 1137, offered by Senator Thomas Tillis, which would exempt patents related to pharmaceuticals and biological products from the Inter Partes Review (IPR) process. The IPR process was established in the America Invents Act, which was passed and signed into law in 2012. The process is intended to provide a quick and low-cost way in which dubious patent claims can be challenged by those who might be affected. In the first two years in which it was in place, almost one-third of challenged claims were canceled or removed according to data from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).Based on this data, the paper argues that the IPR process appears to be an effective mechanism for quickly removing dubious patent claims before they impose major costs on the economy
The Economic Impact of the Iraq War and Higher Military Spending
In order to get an approximation of the economic impact of the increase in U.S. military spending associated with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, CEPR commissioned the economic forecasting company Global Insight to run a simulation with its macroeconomic model. It produced a simulation of the impact of an increase in annual U.S. military spending equal to 1 percent of GDP, approximately the actual increase in spending compared with the pre-war budget. Global Insight's simulation shows higher military spending raises interest rates, which reduces net exports, housing construction and car sales, thereby slowing the economy and job creation
The Big Tax Increase Nobody Noticed
In January of 2013 nearly every worker in the country saw their payroll tax increase by 2.0 percentage points. The payroll tax holiday that had been put in place at the start of 2011 ended in December of 2012, leading to a jump in the Social Security tax from 10.4 percent to 12.4 percent of earnings up to the taxable limit.This was an extraordinarily large increase in the payroll tax. Past increases had generally been phased in gradually. For example, from 1980 to 1990 the tax rate was increased by a total of 2.24 percentage points; however in no year did the rate rise by more than 0.72 percentage points, just over one-third of the 2013 increase.3 If the public was strongly opposed to any tax increases, it would be expected that one as large as the 2013 rise in the Social Security tax would lead to considerable anger, especially given the weakness of the labor market which was still very much feeling the impact of the 2008-2009 recession at that point
The Origins and Severity of the Public Pension Crisis
There has been considerable attention given in recent months to the shortfalls faced by state and local pension funds. Using the current methodology of assessing pension obligations, the shortfalls sum to nearly $1 trillion. Some analysts have argued that by using what they consider to be a more accurate methodology, the shortfalls could be more than three times this size. Based on these projections, many political figures have argued the need to drastically reduce the generosity of public sector pensions, and possibly to default on pension obligations already incurred. This paper shows:Most of the pension shortfall using the current methodology is attributable to the plunge in the stock market in the years 2007-2009.The argument that pension funds should only assume a risk-free rate of return in assessing pension fund adequacy ignores the distinction between governmental units, which need be little concerned over the timing of market fluctuations, and individual investors, who must be very sensitive to market timing.The size of the projected state and local government shortfalls measured as a share of future gross state products appear manageable
Job Sharing: Tax Credits to Prevent Layoffs and Stimulate Employment
The unemployment rate is expected to average 10.2 percent for 2010, 9.1 percent for 2011, and 7.3 percent for 2012. With this in mind, this Issue Brief describes a job sharing tax credit, designed to provide a quick and substantial boost to the economy. It would use tax dollars to pay firms to shorten the typical workweek, while keeping pay constant. This should cause employers to want to hire additional workers. A rough estimate of the impact of this tax credit is between 1.3 and 2.7 million jobs created
Subprime Rescue Plans: Backdoor Bank Bailouts
This report analyzes recent proposals suggesting that the government buy up or guarantee bad mortgage debt in an attempt to slow the increasing number of foreclosures the nation has seen in the wake of the housing market's meltdown. The study, which focuses on the plan put forth by the Office Thrift Supervision, shows that banks and mortgage holders end up being the true beneficiaries of such plans at the expense of taxpayers and with few gains for the majority of homeowners currently facing foreclosure
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