Indirect taxes have become an increasingly important revenue-raising tool for governments in developed countries. In this book, John Creedy applies his wealth of experience and expertise to the analysis of indirect taxes and, in particular, concentrates on the modelling of indirect tax reform and its distributional implications.Initially, he examines the implications of alternative indirect tax systems and provides an introductory survey of various measures of welfare change and excess burden in the context of indirect taxes. He pays particular attention to the measurement issues involved and uses partial equilibrium models to uncover various aspects of tax reform. Specifically, he: addresses the questions of measuring welfare changes arising from price changes examines the built-in flexibility of various forms of consumption taxation calculates the possible redistributive effects of indirect taxes and illustrates his methods using case study examples of the indirect tax system in Australia examines the horizontal inequity of different consumption taxes considers the optimal direction of small changes in indirect tax rates analyses the positive and negative effects of a carbon tax Modelling Indirect Taxes and Tax Reform will be useful to scholars and policymakers interested in public economics and finance and modelling taxes.

The market for retirement financial advice has never been more important and yet more in flux. The long-term shift away from traditional defined benefit pensions toward defined contribution personal accounts requires all of us to be more sophisticated today than ever before. However, the landscape for financial advice is changing all over the world, with new rules and regulations transforming the financial advice profession. This volume explores the market for retirement financial advice, to explain what financial advisors do and how to measure performance and impact. Who are these professionals and what standards must they abide by? How do they make money and what are their incentives? How can one protect clients from bad advice, and what is good advice? Does advice alone effect changes in personal habits? Answering these questions, along with new technology that will decrease the delivery costs of advice, will play a transformative role in helping more households receive the quality financial advice that they need. Accordingly, this volume illuminates the market and regulatory challenges so as to enhance consumer, plan sponsor, and regulator decisions.

In the midst of globalization, technological change and economic anxiety, we have deep doubts about how well that task of investor protection is being performed. In the U.S., the focus is on the Securities & Exchange Commission. Part of the explanation is economic and political: the failure to know the right balance between investor protection and capital formation, and the resulting battle among interest groups over their preferred solutions. This book's main claim, however, is that regulation is also frustrated at nearly every turn by human nature, as exhibited both on the buy-side (investors) and sell-side (corporate executives, bankers, stockbrokers). There is plenty of savvy and guile, but also ample hope, fear, ego, overconfidence, social contagion and the like that persistently filter and distort the messages regulators try to send. This book is the first sustained effort to link the key initiatives of securities regulation with our burgeoning awareness in the social sciences of how people and organizations really behave in economic settings. It examines why corporate fraud occurs and how best to deter it and compensate its victims; the search for an edge via insider trading; the disclosure apparatus and its gatekeepers; sales efforts and manipulation in Ponzi schemes, internet scams, private offerings and crowdfunding; and how this all helps explain the recent global financial crisis. It ends by turning these insights back on the task of regulation itself, and the strategies (and frustrations) of making regulation work in a financial world that is at once increasingly sophisticated yet deeply human and incurably flawed.

"International Taxation in America" presents the most complete and indispensible guide to international taxation available in today's market. Author Brian Dooley, CPA, is a seasoned tax researcher and specialist in international tax and is among the very few experts who have experienced hundreds of international tax audits without a loss.

Covering international taxation for businesses, the taxation of shareholders of foreign corporations, foreign tax credits, cross-border estate planning, and much more, Dooley offers meticulous research and clear explanations of hundreds of international tax-related issues. Whether the subject is tax haven corporations and trusts, reducing taxes through tax treaties, learning how Americans are taxed abroad, or estate planning for multi-national families, Dooley explains the subject in thorough and clear language.

"International Taxation in America" provides valuable lessons for your enrichment, including useful links to help guide you online. You'll receive the level of information and expertise required to avoid mistakes and IRS scrutiny.

Why do so many smart professional people make bad investments? Why do they often fail to accumulate significant wealth and sometimes make truly disastrous financial decisions? This book offers some answers to these questions. It then provides specific recommendations to help doctors, lawyers, scientists, teachers, and many other intelligent people avoid serious financial errors and achieve superior investment results. Sensible self-directed investing with long-term compounding of returns and avoidance of all unnecessary fees can produce remarkable accumulations of capital with limited risk. You can choose to be successful as a largely passive investor or as one more seriously involved in making individual investment decisions. This book tells you how to do it. Buying this short volume and then putting its advice into practice may become the most important financial decisions you have ever made. About the author - Joseph D. Schulman is an internationally known physician, medical research scientist, and biomedical entrepreneur. He is also a successful investor. Dr. Schulman is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and of the Executive M.B.A. (OPM) program at Harvard Business School. He lives with his wife, Dixie, in Oxford, MD and Palm Springs, CA.

This book covers the project financing process from the perspective of a wider and more general group of stakeholders by addressing the three key elements of cash flow; collateral/support structures; and risk management. Following a detailed description of project financing in the first chapter, the authors discuss the project financing process, modelling and risk management, public private partnerships and project financing in practice including the use of the principles in a range of different contexts. A sound understanding of project management is fundamental to successful project financing, as is the need to have a clear plan for a project to communicate the essential information that different stakeholders require.A successful project financing starts with the different phases of a project and descriptions of the key risk areas include the challenges in estimating the cost of a project and the general principles of financial modelling with a discussion of the unique aspects of financial modelling for different industries. Throughout the book, short recent international case studies are used to illustrate successful and unsuccessful projects allowing the lessons learned to be visible and there are many examples of specific applications of project finance techniques throughout the text.Bundle Set: Project Financing (Analyzing and Structuring Projects & Financial Instruments and Risk Management)

This book addresses challenges that new technologies and the big data revolution pose to existing regulatory and legal frameworks. The volume discusses issues such as blockchain and its implications for property transactions and taxes, three (or four) dimensional title registration, land use and urban planning in the age of big data, and the future of property rights in light of these changes. The book brings together an interdisciplinary collection of chapters that revolve around the potential influence of disruptive technologies on existing legal norms and the future development of real estate markets. The book is divided into five parts. Part I presents a survey of the current available research on blockchain and real estate. Part II provides a background on property law for the volume, grounding it in fundamental theory. Part III discusses the changing landscapes of property rights while Part IV debates the potential effects of blockchain on land registration. Finally the book concludes with Part V, which is devoted to new technological applications relevant to real estate. Providing an interdisciplinary perspective on emerging technologies that have the potential to disrupt the real estate industry and the regulation of it, this book will appeal to a broad audience, consisting of scholars, policy-makers, practitioners, and students, interested in real estate, law, economics, blockchain, and technology policy.

Increasing labour market flexibility is at the top of the European agenda. A new and challenging view is a lack of mobility in the labour market may arise from rigidities in the housing market. The research in this book has been inspired by the intriguing hypothesis put forward by Andrew Oswald that homeownership may be a hindrance to the smooth working of the labour markets, as homeowners tend to be less willing to accept jobs outside their own region.
This book brings together leading economists from across Europe to analyse the interaction between housing markets and labour markets. In the EU homeownership rates have been on the increase, often as a result of government policies, making the barriers that homeownership creates in terms of labour mobility increasingly important. This book shows on the one hand, at the individual level, that homeownership limits the likelihood of becoming unemployed and increases the probability of finding a job once unemployed. On the other hand, the transaction costs inherent in the housing market and homeownership hamper job-to-job changes and increase unemployment at the country level. This insight provides a clear policy message to European policymakers: reform in the housing market, aimed at lowering transaction costs and providing less generous subsidies for homeowners could be an effective instrument for reducing unemployment and improving labour market flexibility.

This book critically explores past and present principles of central banking, and outlines a new framework for future stabilization policy. Through compact and concise chapters, it demonstrates why a constant long-term interest rate would be the most beneficial target for monetary policy to follow. A novel set of policy tools and institutional arrangements suitable to reliably meet this target are developed. It is argued that the proposed framework would be clearly superior to conventional policies in preventing financial market crises, maintaining high employment, and keeping the economy at or near potential. The merits and shortcomings of alternative theories such as Modern Monetary Theory are also discussed. This book will be relevant to researchers and policymakers as well as professional investors, analysts, and commentators of financial markets and the economy at large.

Easy to follow, friendly, and conversational How to Talk Finance will help you get the low down on the numbers behind your business -what they are, what they mean and how you can use them to get ahead.

This book brings together for the first time more than half a dozen proposals for an imperial paper currency in the mid-eighteenth century British Atlantic, to show how manage colonial currency and banking in the expanding empire. Existing studies have looked at the successes and failures of schemes in individual colonies. But some had grander ambitions, such as Benjamin Franklin, and offered proposals for 'imperial' or 'continental' paper currencies and monetary unions which would help knit together colonial territories throughout North America and even the Caribbean into a cohesive whole during a moment of imperial reform. This book brings together these proposals for the first time, including several never studied before, to show how thinkers and writers on empire, currency and finance drew on financial practices, precedents and principles from across the British Atlantic to present their own visions of monetary union and the future of empire. In doing so it makes an important and original contribution to the wider histories of monetary and financial thought and theory and the roots of American monetary policy, and the links between finance, empire, politics, reform and revolution. It will be of interest to academics working on the history of finance, banking and currency in the British Isles, North America and the Caribbean in the eighteenth century, as well as those working on the political economy of the British Empire, including mercantilism, trade, warfare and the politics of empire in the decades leading up to the American Revolution.

This book provides a comprehensive presentation on energy-efficient management in urban rail transit system via operations research and uncertain optimization methods. It is suitable for researchers, engineers, and students in the fields of transport management. The readers will learn numerous new modeling ideas on reducing tractive energy consumption and improving regenerative energy utilization, and find this work a useful reference.

Financial institutions, private and public companies and governments can lose vast amounts of money from even minor changes in interest rates. Because of this, complex financial instruments have been developed to mitigate these exposures. But what happens when organisations hedge themselves to ill-advised and ill-formulated financial management strategies? Based on a proven analytical method, Mastering Interest Rate Risk Strategy explains, step-by-step, how to set up and run a sound interest rate risk strategy. Influenced by the author's work with leading companies and tested with banks, the book will help readers bring risk under control, raise profits and ensure healthy cash flows. Mastering Interest Rate Risk Strategy: Shows you how to mitigate interest rate risk using the most advanced risk management techniques Provides you with an analytical method that is proven both academically and in practice Uses examples and real life cases to support the transfer of knowledge and skills Interest rate changes will affect most firms because they will have interest bearing assets or liabilities. As a result, interest rate movements have an unfavourable impact and managing interest rate risk can be highly beneficial for the firm. But high-profile derivative blunders show that this is no easy task. In Mastering Interest Rate Risk Strategy, Victor Macrae shows you how to avoid the mis-selling of derivatives and derivatives blunders and how to set up an optimal interest rate risk strategy. Mastering Interest Rate Risk Strategy includes: Past derivatives blunders and how you can learn from them A proven analytical method for strategy formulation Hedging theory Bank financing for non-financial firms How movements in the financial markets may affect the firm Financial statement impact of interest rate risk The working and risks of using swaps, FRA's, caps, floors, collars and swaptions 'This is a wonderful and easy to read tour of interest rate risk and its management, and mismanagement. Anyone who wants to better understand why and how non-financial firms should be dealing with interest rate risk should read this book.' Gordon M. Bodnar, Professor on International Finance, Johns Hopkins University 'Macrae's guide is an excellent cookbook for financial managers. With many cases and examples, this book offers guidance in robust risk management techniques.' Abe de Jong, Professor of Corporate Finance and Corporate Governance at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University

Bill Gates' quote, "Banking is necessary, but banks are not," showcases the opportunity for financial services digital transformation. The next transition from industry 4.0 to 5.0 will impact all sectors, including banking. It will combine information technology and automation, based on artificial intelligence, person-robot collaboration, and sustainability. It is time to analyze this transformation in banking deeply, so that the sector can adequately change to the 'New Normal' and a wholly modified banking model can be properly embedded in the business. This book presents a conceptual model of banking 5.0, detailing its implementation in processes, platforms, people, and partnerships of financial services organizations companies. The last part of the book is then dedicated to future developments. Of interest to academics, researchers, and professionals in banking, financial technology, and financial services, this book also includes business cases in financial services.