Taxation of Asset Income in the Presence of a World Securites Market

This paper shows, using a standard CAPM model of security prices in a world market, that even small countries can affect the price of domestically issued risky securities, while large countries can affect the prices of all securities. As a result, countries have the incentive to set tax rates such that in equilibrium investors specialize in domestic securities, and net capital flows between countries are restricted. Each country does this to increase the utility of domestic residents, taking as given the tax policies of other governments, but the net outcome is a reduction in world efficiency and likely a reduction in the utility of all individuals.

Seed Rain Patterns During Early Recovery on a Strip-mined Site in Southwestern Wyoming

Revegetating surface-mined soils of the western United States is a major problem facing natural resource managers today. The Surface Mine Reclamation and Conservation Act (SMRCA, Public Law 95-87) requires that the opera tor: … establish on the regraded areas, and all other lands affected, a diverse, effective and permanent vegetative cover of the same seasonal variety native to the area of land to be affected and capable of self-regeneration and plant succession at least equal in extent of cover to the natural vegetation of the area ... Historically, most of the coal produced in the U.S. came from the eastern states; recently, production has shifted to the West (U.S. Dept. of Energy 1982). The reason for this shift in coal production is economic. Net production costs are lower and higher recovery rates are possible in the West where the coal is closer to the land surface. Effectively revegetating disturbed areas will become more important as strip-mining increases in the western states

Assessing the Energy-Efficiency Information Gap: Results from a Survey of Home Energy Auditors

Commercial and residential buildings are responsible for 42 percent of all U.S. energy consumption and 41 percent of U.S. CO2 emissions. Engineering studies identify several investments in new enegy-efficiency equipment or building retrofits that would more than pay for themselves in terms of lower future energy costs, but homeowners and businesses generally do not have good information about how to take advantage of these opportunities. Energy auditors make up a growing industry of professionals who evaluate building energy use and provide this information to building owners. This paper reports the results of a survey of nearly 500 home energy auditors and contractors that Resources for the Future conducted in summer 2011. The survey asked about the characteristics of these businesses and the services they provide, the degree to which homeowners follow up on their recommendations, and the respondents’ opinions on barriers to home energy retrofits and the role for government. Findings from the survey suggest that the audit industry only partially is filling the information gap. Not enough homeowners know about or understand audits, and the follow-through on recommendations once they do have audits is incomplete. But the survey findings suggest that low energy prices and the high cost of retrofits may be more responsible for these outcomes than failures of information.energy efficiency, climate change

Intergenerational Risk Sharing

In this paper we examine government debt and tax-transfer policies that can improve the allocation of risk between generations. Markets cannot allocate risk efficiently between two generations whenever the two generations are not both alive prior to the occurrence of a stochastic event. This implies that government policies transferring risk between generations have the potential to create first-order welfare improvements. Our model provides a non-Keynesian justification for debt-finance of wars and recessions, as well as an added rationale for Social Security type tax-transfer schemes which aid unlucky generations, e.g., the Depression generation, at the expense of luckier generations.Center for Research on Economic and Social Theory, Department of Economics, University of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100725/1/ECON193.pd

Taxation of Asset Income in the Presence of a World Securities Market

This paper shows, using a standard CAPM model of security prices in a world market, that even small countries can affect the price of domestically issued risky securities, while large countries can affect the prices of all securities. As a result, countries have the incentive to set tax rates such that in equilibrium investors tend to specialize in domestic securities, and net capital flows between countries are restricted. Each country does this to increase the utility of domestic residents, taking as given the tax policies of other governments, but the net outcome is a reduction in world efficiency and likely a reduction in the utility of all investors.Center for Research on Economic and Social Theory, Department of Economics, University of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100727/1/ECON195.pd