The 20th century will probably be regarded as a watershed in the history of taxation. The first half of the century was characterized by numerous changes to tax theory and practice that alone probably outstripped those of the previous millennium. But these developments are modest when viewed against the barrage of competing theoretical views and technical analyses of tax policy in the century's last five decades, let alone the avalanche of legislation, regulations, rulings and tax commissions that marked, first, the post-war growth of the welfare state and, second, the growing internationalization of world commerce and the ensuing competition for economic advantages. The expert papers in "Tax Conversations" review the principal themes dominating tax debate and tax reform at the end of the century. Together, they seek to explain how these issues have evolved, their current implications, and their possible or probable directions into the next century. The conversations analyze these elements of the tax debate in order to give meaning to their past and to assess the prospects for their futures. The papers in this volume are presented in honour of John G. Head, a scholar whose work has done much to educate tax theorists and those implementing policy, and considered by many to be this generation's leading figure in Australian public finance.

Despite the success of policymakers and the European Central Bank in calming down financial markets since the summer of 2012, European leaders are still facing formidable challenges in making the single currency work in a complex environment. This book starts with a review of the necessary elements of a currency union and highlights the reasons why the system has run into its present troubles. It points to important policy recommendations to be drawn from a structural analysis of the currency union, achievements and failures of the currency union and ways to improve fiscal sustainability and arrive at stable macroeconomic performance for the union. It highlights the importance and the effectiveness of structural reforms that have to accompany fiscal consolidation and discusses the appropriate tools of crisis management and why a restructuring of the Eurozone is not the right step. Based on these considerations, a long-term target picture for the Eurozone as a part of the EU is outlined, providing a valuable contribution to a hopefully intense public debate in the coming years.

This book was prepared mainly for specialists on the assumption that it would provide the background to an important neglected field of discussion in public finance. Since it was first published in 1958, the theory of public goods and its implications for public policy have become incorporated in the main body of the economic analysis of public finance in the literature. A glance at the footnotes of some of the standard textbooks on public finance indicates that this assembly of articles has not been in vain. Probably the most influential part of this collection has been the papers concerned with the theory of public expenditure, which contains two closely related elements. The first is as a part of welfare economics: under what conditions can Pareto optimality be achieved in an economic system in which some goods supplied are indivisible? The other strand of thought is concerned with the positive theory of the public sector: how can economic analysis be used in order to explain how the size and composition of the budget is actually determined?

The events of the last decade have challenged the contemporary neo-classical synthesis in all branches of economics, but particularly public finance. The most notable feature of the 2nd edition of Public Finance in Theory and Practice is the infusion of behavioral economics throughout the text, with an end of chapter question inviting the student to apply a behavioral lens to some question or issue. There continues to be an emphasis on the importance of the institutional context, drawing on examples from many countries and emphasizing the role of lower level governments in a federal system. The first five chapters establish this context by reviewing the role of government in a market system, the description of government structure from an economic perspective, the basic data about revenue and expenditures, the elements of public choice, and the distributional role of government. The book has been substantially reorganized to put more emphasis on public expenditure. Expanded treatment of public goods includes common property resources and congestible or club goods. Expanded discussion of budgeting and cost-benefit analysis provides some practical application of the theory. Updated discussions of social security, public education and health care address these three major contemporary public finance issues. The traditional emphasis on revenue (taxes, fees and grants) has been retained but follows rather than precedes the discussion of expenditures.

This book focuses on the impact on financial regulation and examines the impact of financial regulation on bank performances from different perspectives. More specifically, this study investigates how bank sector reforms and bank regulation and supervision affect the competition, stability and risk-taking behavior in banking system.

The last several decades have seen major advances in the ways in which public economists investigate behavioural responses to taxation. Recent research has utilized new data sets and has applied new empirical methods, including laboratory experiments and natural and controlled field experiments. The application of behavioural economics has contributed insights from other disciplines, especially psychology. Here James Alm and Sebastian Leguizamon discuss the lessons from all this work. Covering such topics as labour supply, charitable giving, savings, capital gains realisations, mobility, bequests, family structure, reported income and tax evasion, they highlight the current state of knowledge in this area. They present new thinking about the relevant issues and an analysis of useful policy options.

Throughout his long career as a professional scholar, Paul Dale Bush has been a cogent theorist, a model practitioner and an ardent defender of academic freedom and of democratic practices. Institutionalist Theory and Applications is the second of two volumes celebrating his career and his contribution to neo-institutional economics.This volume presents contributions by a distinguished group of institutionalist scholars: Edythe S. Miller, Philip A. Klein, James A. Cypher, F. Gregory Hayden, John Groenewegen, Peter Soderbaum, Charles M.A. Clark, Catherine Kavanagh and Janice Peterson. The book explores the interdependence of theory and policy and applies institutional theory to several problem areas of governance and performance. This book will be of great interest to postgraduate students and academics in the field of institutional economics, evolutionary economics, political economy, history of economic theory, methodology, social economics, social policy and social value theory.

The sharp decline in U.S. productivity growth in the 1970s has brought about a renewed interest in economic policies to expand aggregate supply. Particular importance has been given to the role played by government intervention in the form of taxes, transfer payments, and regulation. This volume asks just what is known about the effect of government policy on the productive capacity of the nation. It also looks at the role played by capital formation, technological change, and the quality of the work force.

This book analyses the reform of Greece's public revenue administration promoted by its international lenders under the successive bailout agreements put in place since 2010. In particular, it shows how an integral part of the finance ministry was converted into an independent agency operating largely outside the direct control of the finance minister. The authors focus on the implementation of this major reform and demonstrate the impact of domestic decisions on the increasing specificity of the international lenders' demands and the concomitant lack of confidence in the Greek political elite's commitment to the reform package. This book helps readers understand the response to the eurozone crisis (especially, the conditionality of funding), Greece's reform capacity with a focus on its tax administration, and the expansion of the scope of non-majoritarian institutions in Western democracies.

Originally published in 1991, user charges and earmarked taxes are methods by which people pay directly for the services they recieve from government. As such they are frequently supported by those who oppose increased taxation, who argue that they are more like market transactions than traditional forms of taxation. This book explores the cogency of these arguments in the light of public choice analyses of political processes.

Assessing both the macro- and micro-economic levels of the contemporary African Debt Crisis, this book, first published in 1989, begins by looking at the origins of the world debt crisis, and then looks closely at the problem as it affects Sub-Saharan Africa. The effects of debt on Africa's position in international relations are considered, and the roles played by organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are assessed. The authors also examine the local effects in a series of case studies of various states including Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone, the Francophone States and Zaire.

This book sheds new light on the critical importance of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), a remarkably successful central bank that is a model for developing oil exporters worldwide. As a "swing producer", Saudi Arabia has traditionally stepped in to make up for oil supply shortfalls in other OPEC countries, or to scale back their own production when overabundance might lead to a price crash. Since 2014, Saudi Arabia has changed its policy in response to the rise of American shale oil, in search of a long-term strategy that will, once again, help balance supply and demand at a steady price. In its informal dual role of central bank and sovereign wealth fund, SAMA must navigate the paradoxes faced by monoline oil producing countries: the need for diversification vs. dependence on oil-based revenue; the loss of foreign exchange reserves that follows oil-financed government spending; the unreliability of revenue from oil; the challenges of using a Western model for supervising Shariah-compliant banks; and the need to have a balancing mix of oil and financial assets. As SAMA (now the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority) reassesses its role in 2017, this history and guide to current policy issues will prove invaluable for policymakers in oil producing economies looking to apply lessons from the past as they plan for the future.

This book discusses various dimensions of Indian fiscal federalism, focusing on the current fiscal imbalances - both vertical and horizontal - and their correction. Throwing light on different angles of this subject, it presents well-researched papers, which are divided into three sections. The first section, 'Fiscal federalism and resolving the fiscal imbalances', includes five chapters that discuss this theme and also explain the various strategies to remove the existing imbalances in India. 'Fiscal decentralization for high growth' which is the second section, explains how decentralisation leads to high economic growth and showcases empirical evidence from a few Indian states that are flourishing due to this policy. The third section, 'Emerging issues' offers six chapters describing several existing key concerns in fiscal federalism that have a major impact on achieving India's development goals. Including contributions from leading academics in this field, the book will be of great interest to research scholars and policy makers alike. "Besides addressing the core issue of fiscal imbalances and ways to correct them, the [chapters] touch on several issues confronting the Indian fiscal system at the centre , state and local levels. The [chapters] are well researched and well argued. The book is a valuable addition to the literature on Fiscal Federalism." - Dr. C. Rangarajan, Ex-Governor of Reserve Bank of India; Chairman, Madras School of Economics, Chennai, India.

The European Union faces several interlinked challenges: how to protect the environment and favour sustainability; how to reduce unemployment and foster competitiveness in a context of growing globalization; how to reduce regional disparities among and within me mb er countries. The recent policy debate has clarified that the above objectives are not a trade off if jointly tackled. In particular, win-win policy options are available to the European Union by an appropriate integration of regulation, macro policy, social policy, fiscal policy and environmental policy. Evidence shows that optimising on each single policy will not meet the needs of the European Union. On the contrary, an integrated approach will make it possible to reach the various objectives, as stated in the Treaty on European Union, in the 5th Environmental Action Programme, in the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment. This integrated approach would im plement a genuine sustainable development policy."

This book is the follow-up to How to Get a SARS Refund, which explained individual taxes. How to Get a SARS Refund for Small Businesses explains small-business tax and is written in easy-to-understand language. The practical examples in the book will allow those who have never studied the subject to understand the tax rules quickly and easily, and will provide aspiring entrepreneurs with extra confidence to take that first step on their business adventure. Current business owners will gain a better understanding of how their business operates.

The book covers different types of tax that a small-business owner may encounter, including income tax, VAT, pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) and dividends tax. The book details how different types of entities are taxed, such as a private company compared with a sole proprietor.

How to Get a SARS Refund for Small Businesses aims to bridge the current education gap that exists for entrepreneurs and small-business owners who were never taught about tax in school or at university.

This book provides a historical narrative of the Argentine tax system in the twentieth century. It argues that the failure to build permanent trust between the state and the civil society and the unraveling of confidence within Argentine society itself account for the collapse of the progressive tax system.

Provides an overview of state and local taxation, the current and future outlook across the nation, the role of taxes in economic development, and tax administration. Analyzes and compares all types of state and local taxes-income (individual and corporate) sales (retail and wholesale taxes on food, medicine, gas, and electricity), excise and consumption (on motor fuel, tobacco, and alcoholic beverages and on food, lodging, amusements, parimutuels, and lotteries), property (on different types of property), and severance taxes (on timber and minerals). Examines the philosophy behind the different taxes, recent trends, and current and future policy options. Appendices describing policy analysis and evaluation and listing key sources of information about state and local taxes, many statistical exhibits, and selective bibliography further enhance this reference for undergraduate and graduate students, the general public, and for public administrators, economists, and political scientists.

The Handbook is a virtual encyclopedia of public financial management, written by topmost experts, many with a background in the IMF and World Bank. It provides the first comprehensive guide to the subject that has been published in more than ten years. The book is aimed at a broad audience of academics/students, government officials, development agencies and practitioners. It covers both bread-and-butter topics such as the macroeconomic and legal framework for budgeting, budget preparation and execution, procurement, accounting, reporting, audit and oversight, as well as specialist subjects such as government payroll systems, local government finance, fiscal transparency, the management of fiscal risks, sovereign wealth funds, the management of state-owned enterprises, and political economy aspects of budgeting. The book sets out numerous examples and case studies describing good practice in public financial management, and is highly relevant for use in both advanced and developing countries.

A comparative analysis of the process of public sector transition from central planning to market democracy. It is the story of the difficulties and complexities of moving to a system of greater autonomy for the subnational governments of the Czech and Slovak Republics, including the future of these two governments' fiscal policies after the global recession.

The four dragons of Asia - Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea - have achieved remarkable progress over the past decades. These newly industrialising countries (NICs) have emerged as major actors on the world economic scene. Their success can be attributed to a number of factors related to historical background, relationship with China, pattern of governance and performance of administrative, political and economic institutions. This book examines the role of public administration in the accomplishments of the NICs and identifies potential areas of challenge for the dragons.

This volume presents selected papers on recent management research from the 20th Eurasia Business and Economics Society (EBES) Conference, which was held in Vienna in 2016. Its primary goal is to showcase advances in the fields of public economics, regional studies, economic development and inequality, and economic policy-making. Reflecting the contemporary political climate, many of the articles address the effectiveness, relevance and impact of European Union policies. In addition, the volume features empirical research from less-researched countries such as Kazakhstan, the Republic of Macedonia, Belarus, and Lithuania, among others.

The analysis of investment decisions today draws upon a wide range of sources, from economics and finance to engineering economy and operations research. Dr. Beenhakker's book reflects this interdisciplinary approach, and without assuming prior knowledge of these fields or a sophisticated understanding of mathematics, provides professionals and upper-level students with the concepts and tools they need to make englightened investments in new ventures. Arranged to permit rapid review of an entire investment subject and written in a modular manner to allow readers to jump among chapters without losing their bearings, the book will help business managers deal intelligently with corporate financial and economic issues and government contracts. It will also help planners of the public sector incorporate the views of private industry in their own investment decision making. A unique, readable, comprehensive treatment for investment professionals and also for academics and their graduate-level students.

The analysis of investment decisions today draws upon a wide range of sources, from economics and finance to engineering economy and operations research. Dr. Beenhakker's book reflects this interdisciplinary approach, and without assuming prior knowledge of these fields or a sophisticated understanding of mathematics, provides professionals and upper-level students with the concepts and tools they need to make enlightened investments in new ventures. Arranged to permit rapid review of an entire investment subject and written in a modular manner to allow readers to jump among chapters without losing their bearings, the book will help business managers deal intelligently with corporate financial and economic issues and government contracts. It will also help planners of the public sector incorporate the views of private industry in their own investment decision making. A unique, readable, comprehensive treatment for investment professionals and also for academics and their graduate-level students.

Dr. Beenhakker begins with a study of financial statements and ratios, and covers annual reports, balance sheets, income and retained earnings statements, cash flow statements, and financial ratios. In Chapter 2 he looks at the valuation and investment problems when shares are under- or overvalued. He moves then to derivative securities, and in Chapter 4 to a discussion of diversification planning. In Chapter 5 he takes up the cost of capital, with special attention to risk, uncertainty, and certainty, and in Chapter 6 covers that and other topics in the context of project appraisal. Chapter 7 digs into programming and planning and covers topics such as the marginal cost of capital in capital budgeting, the optimal capital budget, capital rationing, and economic development plans. The book ends with a discussion of cost minimization problems, such as leasing and purchasing, replacement investments, expansion investments, decision trees, and the problem of how to ship quantities from supply to demand centers such that the total cost of transport is minimized. Five appendices provide readers with various tables and formulas to assist in their own calculations.

Contains analyses that are designed to highlight specified subject areas or provide other significant presentations of budget data that place the budget in perspective. This volume includes economic and accounting analyses; information on federal receipts and collections; analyses of federal spending; information on federal borrowing and debt; baseline or current service estimates; and other technical presentations.