Search results for "reform"
showing 10 items of 691 documents
Tax evasion, tax progression, and efficiency wages
2004
Abstract More progressive taxes raise employment in imperfect labour markets. However, this prediction is not robust. For example, any employment effect vanishes in a constant profit efficiency wage economy. It is demonstrated that tax evasion opportunities can re-establish positive employment effects of higher tax progression.
Corporate hedging under a resource rent tax regime
2010
Accepted version of an article in the journal: Energy Economics. Published version available on Science Direct: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2009.10.009 In addition to the ordinary corporate income tax, special purpose taxes are sometimes levied to extract abnormal profits arising from the use of natural resources. Such dual tax regimes exist in Norway for oil and hydropower, where the corresponding special purpose tax bases are unaffected by any derivatives payments. Dual tax firms with hedging programs therefore face the risk of potentially large discrepancies between the tax bases for corporate income tax and special purpose tax. I investigate how this tax base asymmetry influences …
The effect of polytechnic reform on migration
2011
This paper examines the effect of the polytechnic reform on geographical mobility. A polytechnic, higher education reform took place in Finland in the 1990s. It gradually transformed former vocational colleges into polytechnics and also brought higher education to regions that did not have a university before. This expansion of higher education provides exogenous variation in the regional supply of higher education. The reform raised the mobility of high school graduates across local labour markets in the years after they had completed their secondary studies, which indicated increased mobility between high school and post-secondary education. We estimate that the reform enhanced the annual…
Hidden costs of cuts: austerity, civil service management and the motivation of public officials in Central and Eastern Europe after the crisis
2016
The implementation of austerity measures presents a dilemma for governments. While austerity measures such as cutbacks aim to reduce costs and enhance public sector efficiency, the same measures might undermine the motivation of employees and, consequently, the prospects of effectively implementing austerity programmes. Based on a survey of ministerial officials in Poland and Latvia, this article finds that the scale of cutbacks explains a larger decline of staff motivation in Latvia than in Poland. The article further shows that motivation was more likely to decrease after the crisis if austerity measures involved cutbacks such as staff reductions, recruitment freezes, and a reduction of t…
Decentralization and growth: what if the cross-jurisdiction approach had met a dead end?
2013
International audience; The relationship between decentralization and economic growth is generally studied from a perspective stressing universal or quasi-universal regularities across jurisdictions. That approach has generated many insights but seems to reach its limits. The paper explains why it allows contrasting positions with regard to the benefits of decentralization even among proponents of free and competitive markets. And it seems from the empirical literature that no robust and economically significant cross-jurisdiction relation between decentralization and economic performance or growth, except perhaps their independence, has been found. The absence of a relation valid across ju…
The Employment Effect of Reforming a Public Employment Agency
2015
By how much does an increase in operating effectiveness of a public employment agency (PEA) and a reduction of unemployment benefits reduce unemployment? Using a recent labour market reform in Germany as background, we find that an enhanced effectiveness of the PEA explains about 20% of the observed post-reform unemployment decline. The role of unemployment benefit reduction explains just about 5% of the observed decline. Due to disincentive effects resulting from the reform, the reform of the PEA could have had an even higher impact on unemployment reduction if there had been less focus on long-term unemployed workers.
Tax Liability and Tax Evasion in a Competitive Labor Market
2005
In a competitive labor market, a change in the legal incidence of a tax on labor will not alter employment if tax obligations are fulfilled. However, this irrelevance result may no longer apply if taxes can be evaded. In particular, a shift from payroll to income taxes will lower employment. This will be the case if workers exhibit constant absolute risk aversion, have a utility function, which is strongly separable in income and the disutility from working, and the penalty for evasion is not proportional to the amount of taxes evaded. Accordingly, tax evasion opportunities can make the legal incidence of a tax on labor an important determinant of its economic incidence.
Labor and product market reforms and external Imbalances: Evidence from advanced economies
2021
We explore the impact of major labor and product market reforms on current account dynamics using a new “narrative” database of major changes in employment protection for regular workers and product market regulation for non-manufacturing industries covering 26 advanced economies over the past four decades. Our main finding is that product market deregulation is associated with a weakening of the current account, while labor market deregulation is associated with an improvement. These effects are transitory and driven by both saving and investment responses. Labor and product market reforms both have a more positive impact on the current account balance when implemented under weak macroecon…
Spanish‐Moroccan Economic Relations
1997
The prospects for an effective Euro‐Mediterranean Partnership depend in part on some key bilateral relationships, one of which is the subject of this study. Spanish‐Moroccan relations constitute an important example of North‐South relations in the Mediterranean, although naturally some of their features are specific to the countries involved. While economic relations between Spain and Morocco are competitive in certain areas, the broader picture is of complementary interests which are likely to grow as the development of these countries intensifies. A programme of economic reform since the 1980s has prepared Morocco for greater development cooperation with Spain and the EU, but the economy …
Los oficiales y subalternos de la Real Audiencia de Mallorca (1716-1808)
2019
The objective of this work is to know the organic structure of the officers and subordinates of the Royal Court of Majorca during the 18th century, which was the essence of the high judicial administration insular. Because of that, we approached through these relatively extensive professionals, with the description of their functions, who they were and how they obtained their charges. The article ends with an epilogue dedicated to the enlargement of the Royal Court with the creation of the second chamber during the reformist stage of Charles III to improve the high judicial administration insular.