The article uncovers an inherent link between philosophy and political economy. Application of the dialectical analytical framework to economics opens up distinctly innovative opportunities in social policy and theoretical advancements. Evolutionary understanding of a phenomenon in its totality rather than its break up into seemingly unrelated bits is crucial. Such analysis is capable of offering an all encompassing scientific explanation of the social and economic transformations taking place in modern times. To ensure sustained and socially fair growth, a proactive (...) fiscal involvement is called upon in the areas of a)infrastructure, b) human capital [i.e. education and healthcare] and c) labor migration. Innovative approaches to fiscal policy focus on Infrastructure Development Fund, Strategic Learning Systems, Migration Development Bank, involvement of the Diaspora mechanism and Sovereign Diaspora Bond program [managed viaState–Diaspora Supervisory Boards] to support developmental initiatives. A policy prescription cannot be a “one-fits-all measure.” Considerations of individuality of country specific development patterns as well as the need for understanding history and evolution of the economy, i.e. society, evolve in the dialectical analysis ofphilosophic and economic identity of the totality of social change. This prompts innovative fiscal policy in adequate balance with monetary policy and other development tools. (shrink)

When reading contemporary theories of distributive justice, one could easily get the impression that questions of fiscal design are normatively speaking merely instrumental for realizing the distributive ideal. Once the overall conception of justice is settled upon, questions of how the state should arrange its institutions and policies are settled if they effectively and efficiently promote the preferred distribution. I argue that such pure instrumentalism is mistaken in the context of fiscal policy. As a result, there is (...) nothing problematic or morally arbitrary about accepting domain-specific principles of fiscal justice. (shrink)

'This book is an excellent, theoretically sound and politically relevant reader', Professor Wolfschaefer, Universitat des Bundeswehr, Hamburg 'Up to date complete overview of European monetary and fiscal policy issues. Highly readable, good mix of theory and data' 'I think the book contains a wealth of useful, precise information, presented in a straightforward, readable way in a quintessentially comparative perspective', Dr M Mclean, Royal Holloway University 'Excellent treatment - quite comprehensive, full references, accessible for non-economists', Charlotte Bretherton, Liverpool John (...) Moores Univesity 'A useful addition to student literature', MJ Macmillan, Exeter University 'This is a top class book and does not limit itself to assessing the adequacy of the European political economy to the precepts of advanced monetary economics...This book is an excellent tool for teaching EMU economics, and raising the level of EMU economics in the reaserch-field of international political economy. Students and scholars will appreciate the explicit assessment the authors make of complex economic issues, and their unbiased stance in the study of EMU economic and political interplay.' Miriam L.Campamella, Jean Monnet Professor, Faculty of Political Science, University of Turin. ECSA Review, Winter 2001This textbook offers a fresh and comprehensive examination of European monetary and fiscal policy in the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union. Professors Eijffinger and de Haan give a brief history of European economic integration before the transition to EMU, and continue with a comprehensive analysis of institutions, legislation, and policies. Their analysis includes the functions and goals of the European Central Bank, the Treaty on European Union, the Stability and Growth Pact, and the harmonization of taxes. Other topics discussed include the targets and instruments of European monetary policy, the integration of European financial markets, and the competition between financial institutions in Europe. (shrink)

Land Tenure, Fiscal Policy, and Imperial Power in Medieval Syro-Egypt. By Daisuke Igarashi. Chicago Studies on the Middle East, vol 10. Chicago: Middle East Documentation Center, University of Chicago, 2015. Pp. vi + 264. $79.

Fiscal equivalence in the public administration of justice requires local police and courts to be financed exclusively by the populations that benefit from their services. Within a polycentric framework, broad based taxation to achieve fiscal equivalence is a desirable principle of public finance because it conceptually allows for the provision of justice to be determined by constituent’s preferences, and increases the political accountability of service providers to constituents. However, the overproduction of justice services can readily occur when the (...) benefits of the justice system are not enjoyed equally. Paradoxically, the same properties that make fiscal equivalence desirable by imposing restraint and control between constituents and local government also create internal pressures for agents of the state to engage in predatory, revenue-generating behavior. (shrink)

Scholarship on international health law is currently pushing the boundaries while taking stock of achievements made over the past few decades. However despite the forward thinking approach of scholars working in the field of global health one area remains a stumbling block in the path to achieving the right to health universally: the financing of heath. This paper uses the book Global Health Law by Larry Gostin to reflect and take stock of the fiscal support provided to the right (...) to health from both a global and an African perspective. It then sets out the key fiscal challenges facing global and African health and proposes an innovative solution for consideration: use of the domestic principles of tax to design the global health financing system. (shrink)

L'impôt sous son angle colonial en Afrique était perçu comme un instrument de pression, d'oppression et d'appauvrissement du citoyen contribuable par l'impôt dit, de capitation. Ce lourd passé historique pèse encore sur les systèmes fiscaux d'Afrique et d'ailleurs, systèmes au sein desquels les citoyens se sentent encore victimes parce que spoliés de leurs biens par les puissances publiques. Dans cet ouvrage, Docteur Célestin Amané DAGO propose un changement de paradigme du système de la fiscalité à travers la philosophie politique normative (...) et l'éthique économique appliquée du philosophe américain John Rawls, en introduisant une part de volontariat dans l'accomplissement de l'obligation fiscale, afin de changer le rapport du contribuable à l'Etat. L'ouvrage vu sous cet angle, est un appel aux pouvoirs publics pour inscrire le contribuable au coeur du système fiscal afin que, le paiement de l'impôt soit un acte spontané et volontaire. L'acte volontaire, s'entend comme la réponse à la justice et à l'équité fiscales dans la redistribution sociale des richesses nationales. Au commencement était la philosophie en tant que mère de toutes les sciences et, naturellement M. Amané Célestin DAGO, embrassa cette discipline prestigieuse à l'Université de BOUAKE ; mais, cet eudémoniste toujours souriant et généreux, est un monomane de l'application des savoirs, un citoyen rivé au credo selon lequel le bonheur de la cité ne viendra que d'un gouvernement de philosophes. Voilà le principe d'intelligibilité de toutes ses activités théoriques et pratiques. Etonné par la ruée automatique des politiciens négro-africains vers la démocratie comme régime politique idéal, parce que le maître blanc en domination l'a dit, Monsieur DAGO prépara et soutint un mémoire de maîtrise en philosophie politique et sociale sur le thème suivant : Du procès de la démocratie dans la République de PLATON ; à la suite de quoi, un mémoire de DEA de philosophie intégrale intitulé : La République comme médiation de la justice chez PLATON ; puis, voulant être différent du philosophe THALES de Milet, il prépara son second DEA en philosophie politique normative, qui a eu pour thème : La justice et la répartition fiscale dans la philosophie de JOHN RAWLS. Il est admis au Cycle Supérieur de l'Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA) où il obtient le Diplôme option Impôts, promotion 2004-2005. Depuis novembre 2011, Monsieur DAGO a été nommé Receveur des Impôts Divers par Arrêté du Ministre en charge de l'Economie et des Finances. Malgré ses nombreuses charges administratives, Monsieur DAGO a su réaliser sa passion en soutenant une thèse unique de Doctorat de philosophie politique normative, option éthique économique appliquée. Cette thèse a été sanctionnée par la mention très honorable à l'unanimité du jury. Ajoutons que Monsieur DAGO est l'actuel Président de la Mutuelle de Développement de HIRE (MUDH), mission de développement qui l'a contraint à écrire le livre blanc de la sous-préfecture de HIRE intitulé : Besoin de développement et Exploitation minière à HIRE. Aujourd'hui, Dr DAGO est Administrateur Principal des Sces Financiers à la Direction Générale des Impôts de Côte d'ivoire. (shrink)

The political environment has a significant impact on the sustainable development of enterprises. This manuscript aims to investigate the effect of policy uncertainty and official social capital on enterprises’ effective tax rate due to the change of officials. Based on the panel data from the Chinese Industrial Enterprise Database from 1998 to 2009, it is shown that the policy uncertainty caused by the change of local government officials significantly increases the ETR of enterprises. Meanwhile, municipal officials who have (...) social ties with provincial officials in their province also tend to raise the ETR of industrial enterprises, and this tendency is more evident when the officials take office. Further research shows that the effects vary in many aspects for policy uncertainty and social capital on the ETR of enterprises. The findings of this manuscript provide support for a deeper understanding of the change in local government fiscal policies and give suggestions to strengthen political environmental governance for the sustainable development of enterprises. (shrink)

This article discusses the effects of executive leadership on fiscal policies and performance. I propose that executive leadership, as a political entrepreneur who provides collective goods for organization, has incentives to maintain fiscal discipline so that he or she can stay in office by developing his or her party's reputation and leading party legislators to electoral success. This article argues that executive leadership with stronger public support is more likely to restrain fiscal expenditure and maintain fiscal (...) discipline. I demonstrate this argument by showing that the prime minister who receives higher public support is more likely to restrain fiscal expenditure in Japan. (shrink)

One of the most vexed issues in income tax policy is how family or household status should affect tax liability. This article suggests a general approach for thinking about the treatment of households in the fiscal system generally under a utilitarian social welfare norm. The United States fiscal rules considered include those not only in the income tax but under Social Security, Medicare, and safety net programs. Among the recommendations that emerge from the analysis are (1) recognizing (...) couples for tax and transfer purposes without limitation to those that are married, (2) reducing the fiscal system's current distributional bias in favor of one-earner couples and its discouraging work by secondary earners, and (3) providing significantly more favorable treatment of households with children than of those with similar resources but no or fewer children, without limiting this more favorable treatment, in the manner of present U.S. law, to relatively poor households. Footnotesa * I am grateful to Lily Batchelder and Louis Kaplow for comments on an earlier draft. (shrink)

This paper aims at setting Montesquieu's 1729 sojourn in the Dutch Republic within its specific Dutch context whilst reconsidering the impact this short period may have exerted on his work. Based on a wide variety of Dutch, English and French sources, the article offers a study of Montesquieu's Dutch networks and contacts, a comparative Franco-Dutch approach to taxation and fiscal policy and an insight into the history of the stadholderate under William IV. The main argument made in the (...) paper is two-fold: first, that the Dutch Republic was a mirror Montesquieu held up to the French monarchy, allowing him to put a number of ideas of government to the test; secondly that, owing to the fluctuating nature of Dutch political events between 1729 and 1748, the Dutch model remained somewhat elusive in Montesquieu's broader understanding of the paradigm of republican regimes. (shrink)

Publication date: 29 September 2016 Source: Author: Ahamed Lebbe Mohamed Aslam Interest rate is one of the primary tools in the monetary policy which moves the countries’ economy into positive or negative path. In the meantime, the fiscal imbalance keeps a bond on the interest rate of countries. Empirically, this study tested the impact of fiscal imbalance on the interest rate in Sri Lanka using the annual time series data from the period of 1959 to 2014. In (...) this study, the fiscal imbalance was considered as the independent variable and the interest rate was used as the independent variable. While the money supply and the inflation rates were utilized as controlled variables. To test this impact, the multiple regressions model was employed. Based on the regression outcome, the fiscal imbalance positively maintained the relationship on the interest rate at one percent level. (shrink)

Written by four recognized experts with senior experience in research and government, this text is the first comprehensive survival kit for students and practitioners of economic policy. It is set to become an indispensable resource for everyone involved or interested in modern economic policy. Academic scholars willing to engage in policy discussions and students at graduate or advanced undergraduate levels will find it an essential bridge to the policy world. What makes the book unique is that (...) it combines like no other, facts-based analysis, state-of-the art theories and models, and insights from first-hand policy experience at national and international levels. The book has grown out of ten years of experience teaching economic policy at the graduate level. It provides an intellectually coherent framework to understand the potentialities and limits of economic policy. It addresses positive dimensions, normative dimensions and political-economy constraints. It fills an important gap by reconciling in each major policy area stylized facts of recent economic history, key questions faced by contemporary policymakers, and essential lessons from theory which are captured and explained in a clear, concise, and self-contained way. All major areas of domestic and international policymaking are covered: fiscal policy, monetary policy, international finance and exchange-rate policy, tax policy, and long-term growth policies. The book concludes with a special chapter on the lessons of the financial crisis. The authors are intellectually non-partisan and they draw examples from various countries and experiences; from emerging markets to developing economies, shedding light when necessary on local specificities such as European Union rules and instruments. Economic Policy: Theory and Practice is the essential guide to economic policy in the new post-crisis context. (shrink)

The paper presents, in the synthetic way, the issue of the rationality of the tax system and taxation principles in relation to the clearly visible fiscal crisis in the 21st century caused by, among others, COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis which is theoretical (descriptive, comparative) was carried out by using tools indicated in the area of New Institutional Economics (NIE). Attention was devoted primarily to the importance of specific institutional arrangements, broadly understood as the “rules of the game” applicable in (...) the political and economic spheres, and related to the problems of public finances. Research has shown that the appropriate design of tax rules may contribute, to some extent, to limiting the fiscal crisis. Tax policy, and even more broadly, fiscal policy, may determine the formula in which the economic achievements regarding compliance with tax principles and fiscal rules can be implemented. What is primarily important is the legal framework (one of the most important formal institutions) within which state policy in the field of public finances should be implemented. (shrink)

In the wake of the financial crisis, many developed countries have embarked upon ambitious fiscal consolidation programs. While the success of austerity programs is still unclear, it is also an open question what success would mean for activist government in the long run. This study rejects the progressive belief that successful fiscal consolidation will strengthen fiscal capacity, arguing that consolidations transform the political context in which fiscal policy is made. By analyzing public expenditure in six (...) countries with sustained budget surpluses, we show that surpluses were mostly achieved through expenditure cuts but predominantly used for tax cuts. While fiscal crises abated, their collateral damage to public expenditure remained. This result is further elaborated by a case study of the Swedish budget surplus. We conclude that consolidations can create a new fiscal regime and thus have long-term consequences for the fiscal capacity of the state. (shrink)

The article discusses the determinants of fiscal policy in the times of COVID-19. Most economists share the opinion that fiscal packages are necessary to mitigate the health and economic costs of a pandemic. However, the scale of fiscal intervention and the types of fiscal policy instruments that should be used raise doubts. The aim of the article is to explore the factors determining the size and structure of fiscal packages which have been implemented (...) globally in response to the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, attention is drawn to the potential impact of fiscal intervention on public finance sustainability, bearing in mind that most governments have chosen to use fiscal support instruments to enhance consumption and investment following the COVID-19 hit, although the cross-country differences are evident both in the magnitude and composition of fiscal stimulus packages. A descriptive analysis was conducted along with a panel data analysis to examine the determinants of government fiscal support in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The empirical analysis is based on cross-sectional data from the International Monetary Fund, OECD and Eurostat. The sample consists of 40 countries representing advanced and emerging economies. Based on the panel analysis, it was found that the total fiscal stimulus packages depended mainly on the fiscal space. Fiscal intervention in countries with greater tax-collection capacity (such as Germany, United States, United Kingdom and Japan) was greater compared to others. A positive and statistically significant relationship between the average income level and the size of fiscal stimulus was also confirmed. Moreover, it turned out that countries with larger populations and higher fatality rates provided greater fiscal support for the COVID-19 pandemic.The empirical analysis expands the existing knowledge on the determinants of the fiscal policy implemented in response to the COVID-19 crisis under the conditions of low interest rates, when macroeconomic stabilization can only be ensured through fiscal stimulus programs. (shrink)

The fiscal imbalance between the central and local governments under fiscal centralization may motivate local governments to pass tax burdens on firms. The causal identification of the tax system reform and the sustainable export innovation behavior of firms are of great significance. This study uses the income tax sharing policy of China to examine the impact of fiscal centralization on the sustainable export innovation behavior of firms. We find that this tax reform has significantly inhibited the (...) increase of the export value-added rate of firms, and has an increasing trend with the share ratio between the Central Government and the local government. Moreover, this effect mainly comes from the crowding-out effect of imported intermediate goods on domestic intermediate goods. The tests show that the above conclusions are consistent with the general logic of local governments. When they face greater downward fiscal pressure, they will further pass the tax burden on local firms and force the firms to promote their export performance to expand the tax base. This short-sighted behavior of replacing “quality improvement” with “quantity increase” is an important factor that affects the sustainable export innovation behavior of firms and the climb in the global value chain. (shrink)

It is no exaggeration to say that American health policy is frequently subordinated to budgetary policies and procedures. The Affordable Care Act was undeniably ambitious, reaching health care services and underlying health as well as health insurance. Yet fiscal politics determined the ACA’s design and guided its implementation, as well as sometimes assisting and sometimes constraining efforts to repeal or replace it. In particular, the ACA’s vulnerability to litigation has been the price its drafters paid in exchange for (...) fiscal-political acceptability. Future health care reformers should consider whether the nation is well served by perpetuating such an artificial relationship between financial commitments and health returns. (shrink)

The paper examines the social contradictions generated by patterns of reproduction of accumulation of capital, social legitimation and by present agricultural policies fostered by the State. Through a scrutiny of the role of the State in capitalism it is argued that agricultural overproduction, the widening of the gap between small and large farms, the fiscal crisis of the State associated with agricultural programs and waste of resources are the outcomes of an attempt on the part of the State to (...) promote simultaneously accumulation and legitimation. The possibility of enhancing accumulation and maintaining legitimation clashes with the diverse socio-economic demands associated with the present agricultural production system and the general viability of the social structure as a whole. (shrink)

Contemporary fiscal theorizing largely assimilates the activities of government to that of some choosing agent. This paper explores an alternative approach where government is assimilated to an emergent process of complex interaction, as a form of complex adaptive system. Within this alternative vision, governments are treated not as objects of intervention into a market economy but as arenas of organized participation within it. While recent developments in computational modeling are starting to provide tools for probing such a vision, the (...) roots of that vision can be traced back to the spontaneous order theorists of the 18th century. After sketching some contours of this alternative vision, the remainder of the paper explores some possible implications of this change in vision for mapping the relationship among taxation, prosperity, and justice. (shrink)

To achieve environmental sustainability, the role of human capital and financial inclusion has been debated in limited empirical studies. Employing a reliable ARDL model approach, this study examines the dynamic link between human capital and ICT, financial inclusion, and CO2 emissions using the China economy dataset over the period 1998–2020. The vivacious side of human capital shows that literacy rate and average year of schooling curb CO2 emissions in long run. The results of human capital are also based on facts (...) in magnitude as well as in direction. Also, empirics unfold that digital financial inclusion significantly increases CO2 emissions. Based on these novel findings, a wide set of economic policies are repaired for environmental quality. Environmental education should be considered at early levels of education. The authorities and policymakers should fix energy-related issues through education. The China government should stimulate the educational sector to conduct a clean and green revolution that acts as a mechanism for a green and clean economy. This study's finding is more effective than the previous unlike empirical studies for policy-making because of the advanced econometric method. (shrink)

The Clash of Economic Ideas interweaves the economic history of the last hundred years with the history of economic doctrines to understand how contrasting economic ideas have originated and developed over time to take their present forms. It traces the connections running from historical events to debates among economists, and from the ideas of academic writers to major experiments in economic policy. The treatment offers fresh perspectives on laissez faire, socialism and fascism; the Roaring Twenties, business cycle theories and (...) the Great Depression; Institutionalism and the New Deal; the Keynesian Revolution; and war, nationalization and central planning. After 1945, the work explores the postwar revival of invisible-hand ideas; economic development and growth, with special attention to contrasting policies and thought in Germany and India; the gold standard, the interwar gold-exchange standard, the postwar Bretton Woods system and the Great Inflation; public goods and public choice; free trade versus protectionism; and finally fiscal policy and public debt. (shrink)

Ageing without Ageism? contributes to the essential and timely discussion of age, ageism, population ageing, and public policy. It demonstrates the breadth of the challenges posed by these issues by covering a wide range of policy areas: from health care to old-age support, from democratic participation to education, and from family to fiscal policy. With contributions from 21 authors the discussion bridges the gap between academia and public life by putting in dialogue fresh philosophical analysis and (...) specific new policy proposals. It approaches familiar issues like age discrimination, justice between age groups, and democratic participation across the ages from novel perspectives. (shrink)

Financing Public Schools moves beyond the basics of financing public elementary and secondary education to explore the historical, philosophical, and legal underpinnings of a viable public school system. Coverage includes the operational aspects of school finance, including issues regarding teacher salaries and pensions, budgeting for instructional programs, school transportation, and risk management. Diving deeper than other school finance books, the authors explore the political framework within which the schools must function, discuss the privatization of education and its effects on public (...) schools, offer perspectives regarding education as an investment in human capital, and expertly explain complex financial and economic issues. This comprehensive text provides the tools to apply the many and varied fiscal concepts and practices that are essential for aspiring public school administrators who aim to provide responsible stewardship for their students. (shrink)

Family farming became a major social force in the Federal Republic following World War II. Several political, economic and social factors facilitated the development of a unified political representation within the farm sector. The German Farmers Union (Deutscher Bauernverband) became the main representative of the farm sector. Its platform included the preservation of family farms and it attempted to realize this goal through the promotion of commodity price support policies. Political support for these programs was legitimized with the elaboration of (...) a system of values espousing the positive qualities of family farms. Price support policies were opposed by free market advocates with an alternative system of values that fundamentally contradicted those of family farm advocates. Although commodity price supports promoted by partisans of family farming dominated agricultural policy formation in the 1950s and 1960s, fiscal crisis in the EEC and economic differentation within the farm sector began to undermine the position of family farming as a social force. But economic stagnation also prevented the free market position from gaining dominance. Economic differentiation within the farm sector has had an important regional dimension, and this has served as a basis for policy compromise. Economic changes over the post-WWII period have undermined the family farm as a social force. Nevertheless, values associated with family farming continue to have a place in agricultural policy. However, family farming is valued less as an end in itself, and more as a means to the realization of more practical ends such as the preservation of rural landscapes for recreational purposes. (shrink)

Embryonic stem cells are actively debated in political and public policy arenas. However, the connections between stem cell innovation and overall health care policy are seldom elucidated. As with many controversial aspects of medical care, the stem cell debate bridges to a variety of social conversations beyond abortion. Some issues, such as translational medicine, commercialization, patient and public safety, health care spending, physician practice, and access to insurance and health care services, are core health policy concerns. Other (...) issues, such as economic development, technologic progress, fiscal politics, and tort reform, are only indirectly related to the health care system but are frequently seen through a health care lens. These connections will help determine whether the stem cell debate reaches a resolution, and what that resolution might be. (shrink)

The issue how to reduce of tax evasion is widely discussed in the literature. A public authority may affect the behavior of taxpayers, not only through economic factors, but also by strengthen fiscal discipline. In this process especially role play such issues as tax morale, tax mentality and perceived tax justice. The purpose of the study was to identify groups of taxpayers with similar attitudes towards taxes and similar tax behaviors. Cluster analysis elicited four types of tax payers: Intrinsic (...) Tax Payer, External Tax Payer, Intrinsic Tax Evader, External Tax Evader. In the study the most common were the first two types of taxpayers. Elicited types correspond with motivational tax postures identified by Braithwaite and Torgler. The conclusions sum up the key issues discussed, policy implications and the limitation of the analysis. (shrink)

Self‐care, or self‐management, is presented in healthcare policy as a precursor to patient empowerment and improved patient outcomes. Alternatively, critiques of the self‐care agenda suggest that it represents an over‐reliance on individual autonomy and responsibility, without adequate support, whereby ‘self‐care’ is potentially unachievable and becomes ‘care left undone’. In this sense, self‐care contributes to a blame culture where ill‐health is attributed to personal behaviours or lack thereof. Furthermore, self‐care may represent a covert form of rationing, as the fiscal (...) means to enable effective self‐care and supplement, or replace, self‐care capacities, is not provided. This paper explores these arguments through a contemporary ethical analysis of the self‐care agenda. The terms self‐care and self‐management are used interchangeably throughout whereby self‐management is understood as a point in the wider self‐care continuum. (shrink)

This book approaches the problems and circumstances confronting blacks in the context of black values, the black community, and the role of government. ^BContents:: The Black Community's Values as a Basis for Action; The Community as Agent of Change; and The Government's Role in Meeting New Challenges.

International tax competition undermines states’ capacity for redistributive taxation. It is thus problematic from the point of view of both cosmopolitan and internationalist theories of justice. This article examines the proposal of a fiscal policy constraint that prohibits tax policies if they are strategically motivated and harmful to effective fiscal self-determination internationally. I argue that we should opt for a more robust, preference-independent mechanism to prevent harmful tax competition instead. States should, as a matter of justice, accept (...) global minimum tax rates on mobile tax bases. (shrink)

У статті досліджуються питання формування та сутності державного боргу. Визначається місце державного боргу в системі державних фінансів. Окреслено концептуальні засади формування державного боргу в умовах кризового стану економіки. На основі аналізу теоретичних підходів наукових шкіл до реалізації державної боргової політики автор робить висновок, що сучасна теорія державного боргу характеризується як компроміс різних теоретичних поглядів з проблем дефіцитного фінансування державних витрат. Розвивається системний підхід до аналізу державного боргу, заснований на визнанні як його позитивного впливу на розвиток економіки, так і негативних факторів, (...) пов'язаних зі зростанням заборгованості уряду. (shrink)

Selected as a Financial Times Best Book of 2013Governments today in both Europe and the United States have succeeded in casting government spending as reckless wastefulness that has made the economy worse. In contrast, they have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts--austerity--to solve the financial crisis. We are told that we have all lived beyond our means and now need to tighten our belts. This view conveniently forgets where all that debt came from. Not from an orgy of (...) government spending, but as the direct result of bailing out, recapitalizing, and adding liquidity to the broken banking system. Through these actions private debt was rechristened as government debt while those responsible for generating it walked away scot free, placing the blame on the state, and the burden on the taxpayer. That burden now takes the form of a global turn to austerity, the policy of reducing domestic wages and prices to restore competitiveness and balance the budget. The problem, according to political economist Mark Blyth, is that austerity is a very dangerous idea. First of all, it doesn't work. As the past four years and countless historical examples from the last 100 years show, while it makes sense for any one state to try and cut its way to growth, it simply cannot work when all states try it simultaneously: all we do is shrink the economy. In the worst case, austerity policies worsened the Great Depression and created the conditions for seizures of power by the forces responsible for the Second World War: the Nazis and the Japanese military establishment. As Blyth amply demonstrates, the arguments for austerity are tenuous and the evidence thin. Rather than expanding growth and opportunity, the repeated revival of this dead economic idea has almost always led to low growth along with increases in wealth and income inequality. Austerity demolishes the conventional wisdom, marshaling an army of facts to demand that we austerity for what it is, and what it costs us. (shrink)

Rich people stash away trillions of dollars in tax havens like Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, or Singapore. Multinational corporations shift their profits to low-tax jurisdictions like Ireland or Panama to avoid paying tax. Recent stories in the media about Apple, Google, Starbucks, and Fiat are just the tip of the iceberg. There is hardly any multinational today that respects not just the letter but also the spirit of tax laws. All this becomes possible due to tax competition, with countries strategically (...) designing fiscal policy to attract capital from abroad. The loopholes in national tax regimes that tax competition generates and exploits draw into question political economic life as we presently know it. They undermine the fiscal autonomy of political communities and contribute to rising inequalities in income and wealth.Building on a careful analysis of the ethical challenges raised by a world of tax competition, this book puts forward a normative and institutional framework to regulate the practice. In short, individuals and corporations should pay tax in the jurisdictions of which they are members, where this membership can come in degrees. Moreover, the strategic tax setting of states should be limited in important ways. An International Tax Organisation should be created to enforce the principles of tax justice.The author defends this call for reform against two important objections. First, Dietsch refutes the suggestion that regulating tax competition is inefficient. Second, he argues that regulation of this sort, rather than representing a constraint on national sovereignty, in fact turns out to be a requirement of sovereignty in a global economy. The book closes with a series of reflections on the obligations that the beneficiaries of tax competition have towards the losers both prior to any institutional reform as well as in its aftermath. (shrink)