The macroeconomic consequences of Scottish fiscal autonomy: inverted haavelemo effects in a general equilibrium analysis of the tartan tax

In 1997 the Scottish people voted both for the creation of a legislative Parliament and to endow the Parliament with tax-varying powers. The establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 2000 heralded the most radical innovation in the regional fiscal system in modern U.K. history. This development has been the subject of considerable controversy, however, especially in respect of the decision to afford the Parliament the power to alter the basic rate of income tax by up to 3p in either direction. The fact that Scotland, at least according to official data, receives a substantial net fiscal transfer from the rest of the UK, and has traditionally had higher public expenditure per capita than England, leads most commentators to believe that the power to change the standard rate will, in practice, be restricted to the power to increase it (Blow et al, 1996; McGregor et al 1997). Accordingly, while the Parliament allows the use of the power to generate a balancedbudget contraction in expenditure, we focus here on the impact of a balanced-budget fiscal expansion. While Labour, SNP and the Liberal Democrats in Scotland all supported the introduction of a Parliament with tax-raising powers, the Conservatives labelled this scheme the “tartan tax” and claim that its use would be detrimental to Scotland, leading to a reduction in Scottish employment and to net out-migration. This political controversy, together with the national Labour Party’s desire to shed its reputation as a Party of high taxation, in part accounted for the Scottish Labour Party’s commitment not to exercise the tax-varying power during the lifetime of the first Scottish Parliament, despite the fact that others have meanwhile been vigorously arguing the case for full fiscal autonomy. In this paper we focus primarily on the consequences for the Scottish economy if the Parliament chooses to exercise the degree of fiscal autonomy that it already possesses. However, the factors that govern the likely macroeconomic impact of a balanced budget change also prove critical to the analysis of any region-specific tax or expenditure change, whether generated as a consequence of, for example, rigorous adherence to the Barnett formula (that, at least in principle, governs the allocation of government expenditure to the devolved authorities in the UK, et al 2003, 2007) or movement towards greater fiscal autonomy. Accordingly, we also identify the implications of our analysis for the wider debate on regional fiscal issues in general and greater fiscal autonomy in particular

Accounting for the financialized UK and US national business model

The term ‘business model’ (BM) is generally used to describe the possibilities of transforming corporate activities and business functions (Osterwalder et al,2005 and Magretta,2002) In this paper we argue that our understanding of what constitutes a BM can be reworked to generate a useful organizing framework to investigate the nature of national economic development and transformation. Our argument is that national business models are subtended within a broad econo‐sphere where they evolve and adapt to information arising out of stakeholder interactions. These interactions congeal into reported financial numbers that are represented as GDP flow (income and surplus) and Balance Sheet accumulations (assets and liabilities outstanding). In this paper we employ financial data from national accounts to specifically describe how the US and UK national business models have financialized. We observe that balance sheet capitalization has inflated ahead of earnings and surplus. Our argument is that the capitalization of a national business model is not simply the mathematical product of discounting corporate cash earnings. The process of on‐going capitalization is also conditioned by variable institutional sector characteristics where financial innovation is possible and, within credit based economies, goodwill and holding gains arising out of asset inflation also provide collateral for further ongoing recapitalizations. In financialized national business models the system of accounting takes on added analytical significance because it ‘transmits rather than contains’ and ‘amplifies rather than dampens’ adverse financial disturbance as capitalizations are recalibrated up or down.Peer reviewe

Income and Happiness across Europe: Do Reference Values Matter?

Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS), we examine the link between income and subjective well-being. We find that, for the whole sample of nineteen European countries, although income is positively correlated with both happiness and life satisfaction, reference income exerts a negative effect on individual well-being, a result consistent with the relative utility hypothesis. Performing separate analyses for some Eastern European countries, we also find some evidence of a ‘tunnel effect’, in that reference income has a positive impact on subjective well-being. Our findings support the view that in environments with stable income and employment, reference income serves as a basis for social comparisons, whereas in relatively volatile environments, it is used as a source of information for forming expectations about future status.comparison income, reference groups, happiness, life satisfaction

Inverted Haavelmo Effects in a General Equilibrium Analysis of the Impact of Implementing the Scottish Variable Rate of Income Tax.

The Scottish Parliament has the authority to make a balanced-budget expansion or contraction in public expenditure, funded by corresponding local changes in the basic rate of income tax of up to 3p in the pound. This fiscal adjustment is known as the Scottish Variable Rate of income tax, though it has never, as yet, been used. In this paper we attempt to identify the impact on aggregate economic activity in Scotland of implementing these devolved fiscal powers. This is achieved through theoretical analysis and simulation using a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model for Scotland. This analysis generalises the conventional Keynesian model so that negative balanced-budget multipliers values are possible, reflecting a regional “inverted Haavelmo effect”. Key parameters determining the aggregate economic impact are the extent to which the Scottish Government create local amenities valuable to the Scottish population and the extent to which this is incorporated into local wage bargaining.Fiscal federalism, devolution, regional wage bargaining and migration, Scotland, regional computable general equilibrium analysis.

Disitamab Vedotin plus anti-PD-1 antibody show good efficacy in refractory primary urethral cancer with low HER2 expression: a case report

Primary urethral carcinoma (PUC) has a low incidence, but with high aggressiveness. Most of the patients are found in late stage, with poor prognosis. At present, chemotherapy is still the main treatment for metastatic PUC, but it has limited effect. Here, we report a case of metastatic PUC with low HER2 expression that developed disease progression after multiline therapy including chemotherapy, programmed death-1 (PD-1) inhibitors and multi-targeted receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) inhibitor. After receiving Disitamab Vedotin(a novel antibody drug conjugate, ADC) and toripalimab (a PD-1 inhibitor), the patient achieved persistent PR, and the PFS exceeded 12 months up to now. Our report indicates that, despite the patient of metastatic PUC has low expression of HER2, it is still possible to benefit from Disitamab Vedotin combined with PD-1 inhibitor, which may reverse the drug resistance of PD-1 inhibitor and chemotherapy to a certain extent. But larger sample studies are needed to determine the efficacy of this treatment strategy and its impact on survival

Discovery potential for the LHCb fully-charm tetraquark X(6900)X(6900) state via pˉp\bar{p}p annihilation reaction

Inspired by the observation of the fully-charm tetraquark $X(6900)$ state at LHCb, the production of $X(6900)$ in $\bar{p}p\rightarrow J/\psi J/\psi$ reaction is studied within an effective Lagrangian approach and Breit-Wigner formula. The numerical results show that the cross section of $X(6900)$ at the c.m. energy of 6.9 GeV is much larger than that from the background contribution. Moreover, we estimate dozens of signal events can be detected by D0 experiment, which indicates that searching for the $X(6900)$ via antiproton-proton scattering may be a very important and promising way. Therefore, related experiments are suggested to be carried out.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

The Scottish economy [June 1997]

This section presents short and long term forecasts for the quarterly growth rates of Scottish manufacturing (Division D of the 1992 SIC) output