Dynamic optimal taxation with private information

We study dynamic optimal taxation in a class of economies with private information. Constrained optimal allocations in these environments are complicated and history-dependent. Yet, we show that they can be implemented as competitive equilibria in market economies supplemented with simple tax systems. The market structure in these economies is similar to that in Bewley (1986): agents supply labor and trade risk-free claims to future consumption, subject to a budget constraint and a debt limit. Optimal taxes are conditioned only on two observable characteristics—an agent’s accumulated stock of claims, or wealth, and her current labour income—and they are not additively separable in these variables. The marginal wealth tax is decreasing in labour income and its expected value is generally positive. The marginal labour income tax is decreasing in wealth.Taxation ; Information theory

Fiscal Hedging with Nominal Assets

We analyze optimal fiscal and monetary policy in an economy with distortionary labor income taxes, nominal rigidities and nominal debt of various maturities. Optimal policy prescribes the exclusive use of long term debt. Such debt mitigates the distortions associated with hedging fiscal shocks by allowing the government to allocate them efficiently across states and periods.

Sleet, Marion

H/S Co. 2807th Engr (GS)https://dh.howard.edu/prom_corres/1134/thumbnail.jp

Fiscal Hedging and the Yield Curve

We identify a novel, fiscal hedging motive that helps to explain why governments issue more expensive, long-term debt. We analyze optimal fiscal policy in an economy with distortionary labor income taxes, nominal rigidities and nominal debt of various maturities. The government in our model can smooth labor tax rates by changing the real return it pays on its outstanding liabilities. These changes require state contingent inflation or adjustments in the nominal term structure. In the presence of nominal pricing rigidities and a cash in advance constraint, these changes are themselves distortionary. We show that long term nominal debt can help a government hedge fiscal shocks by spreading out and delaying the distortions associated with increases in nominal interest rates over the maturity of the outstanding long-term debt. After a positive spending shock, the government raises the yield curve and steepens it.

Genocide in Northeast Brazil: Dismantling Colonial Legacies of Contemporary State Violence in Salvador

The systematic use of violence by the police a lead me to the city of Salvador, Bahia, a city where 80% of the population is Afro-Brazilian. Using a framework of structural violence I develop a critical understanding of how contemporary manifestations of colonialism impact black people in Salvador, Bahia. Through this research I problematize the idea of the “racial democracy” to understand how black people are experiencing the direct use of violence by the Brazilian state in the form of anti-black genocide. I ask how Black Brazilian activists in Salvador resist and challenge state violence, specifically in the context of genocide; what technologies are local activists using to confront and respond to state violence; how is this violence, executed by the state upon members of Black Brazilian community in Salvador, reflective of a history of colonial violence. I explore how the members of the local activist community understand, articulate, and challenge state violence within the context anti-black genocide historically rooted in the colonial institution of slavery. Using a framework of structural violence, I engage in a postcolonial critique to problematize the historicity of the official narrative, exposing a legacy of violent colonialism, and the erection of a structurally violent state apparatus. Furthermore, I connect criminalization of Black people in Brazil and the United States to a broader history of colonialism in the Americas, with a focus on Brazil. Through analysis I explore the colonial roots of the institutionalization of racism and violence that have resulted in the genocide of black people in Brazil

Sleet, Marion (2)

H/S Co. 2807th Engr (GS)https://dh.howard.edu/prom_corres/1135/thumbnail.jp

A Contrast of the Teaching Procedures in the Traditional School with That of the Activity School

There has been quite a heated discussion of the new philosophy of education. The idea has been gradually emerging since the time of Plato, but not until recently has it been accepted by teachers. The problem is, shall we educate for life, or shall education be itself a process of good living? Dewey held at the beginning of the century that education is not a preparation for life but it is life.1 It has taken a third of a century to realize that the school curriculum should be mainly concerned with engaging in activities through which subject matter may be learned rather than teaching the traditional school subjects directly. The child is not regarded as a species of an empty reservoir to be filled as economically and effectively as possible, but as a living creature of endlessly diversified possibilities in activity and behavior.2 After much travail and labor various laboratory and progressive schools have come into existence. Within the past few decades definite changes have taken place in American life profoundly affecting the activities of individuals. The individual of today must as a citizen of America, be able to cope with the changed and changing community, state and national life. Running parallel to this change has been the lessening child training responsibility within the home due to the withdrawal of parents from the home to factories and stores, yet the child was not to be neglected since the child is Father to the man, and his education and training must prepare for the future man. Thus education, with its broadening responsibility to meet changing needs, became education for a Democracy, or education based on needs and interests of the child. 1 Stomzand & McKee. The Progressive Primary Teacher, p. 1 Houghton Mifflin, New York. p. 1 2 Stomz St McKee. The Progressive Primary Teacher, p. 1 Health, worthy home membership, command of the fundamental processes, vocation, citizenship, use of leisure time and ethical character though definitely applicable to Secondary Schools, form the basis for teaching in Primary and Elementary Schools as well. This thesis is concerned with the changed and changing methods used in teaching in primary grades. It shall have as its chief purpose the contrasting of the old and the new types of teaching used therein, in an effort to critically analyze each. References made to the traditional school is to that school of subjects in which teaching, instructing and knowledge of subject matter were essential elements. 1 On the other hand the activity school may be defined as the school whose program is based on needs and consists of experiences which uses subject matter but does not consist wholly of subject matter.2 In this thesis the writer intends to first set up the differences between the traditional and activity school and secondly, to contrast her actual procedures within both types. This study shall be limited to primary grades, and schools in the rural districts since the writer has only had experience in traditional and activity schools of the rural district. 1 Mead, C. D., and Orth, F. W. The Transitional Public School. Pp64-65 2. Lowth, F. J. Everyday Problems of the Country Teacher. Pp 403-405

On the Approximation of Value Correspondences

Recursive game theory provides theoretical procedures for computing the equilibrium payoff sets of repeated games and the equilibrium payoff correspondences of dynamic games. In this paper, we propose and implement outer and inner approximation methods for value correspondences that naturally occur in the analysis of dynamic games.The procedure utilizes set-valued step functions. We provide an application to a bilateral insurance game with storage.