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Knowledge has now become a capital investment and no longer a cost of producing goods. This change has been announced by Brent Moulton, head of national accounts at the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), on April 22nd, 2013. This will change the way gross domestic products are calculated. It will lead to an immediate 3% growth in the United States’ GDP.

The new IREF paper of Stefan Lutz, from the University of Manchester, UK, and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain, points out that if it is apparent that companies do not welcome taxation, the main reason is that taxes reduce profits: shareholders are disappointed and the prospects for investments and development are penalized. This paper, however, concentrates on how companies react to taxation by changing their “gearing ratio”, i.e. the compositions of the financial resources at their disposal by investigating a panel of 240,000 European firms during the 1985-2010 period.

Richard Durana, Ph.D, director of Institute of Economic and Social Studies (INESS) has annouced that INESS released the Receipt for Government Services for 2013.
The annual price of the state for Slovakia increased by EUR 322 (7.3%) and reached EUR 4,704 per citizen.

France is the best example of this economic truth. The French public sector is undermining the economy. It must be pointed out that in Spain and Ireland the crisis was due to a real-estate bubble. In France, the crisis is worsened by an obese bureaucracy. The trend is striking: the French public sector is growing faster than the private sector since 1987.

Here is a new and big campaign against tax havens. But tax exile will last as long as confiscatory and arbitrary taxes will last. It is the case in France. Should not a tax amnesty be proposed? The IREF is making the proposal that all sorting out that has begun this year should reach an agreement within a short delay and be adjusted at a standard cost of 50% of the total incomes (interests, dividends, add-value)made on these account since 2006. Those who managed their assets through companies or whose accounts were subject to donations or inheritance should not be penalized. Such a measure would yield about a billion euros.

“She did not just lead our country; she saved our country” said British Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron as a tribute Margaret Thatcher who died at 87, on April 8th, 2013. Tony Blair, former British Labor Prime Minister, declared: “Very few leaders get to change not only the political landscape of their country but of the world. Margaret was such a leader. And some of the changes she made in Britain were… retained by the 1997 Labor government, and came to be implemented by governments around the world.” Her legacy is more than ever alive and is the proof that politics with good ideas can change countries to the best. Let’s have a quick overview of her doings.

Corruption! A word that is destroying the base of the Government action. Above the “Cahuzac Case”, it is the whole public power that is stained with doubt and distrust. The clear and present danger is the rise of uncontrolled populisms seeking the collapse of a corrupt Government. But this would lead nowhere. The real solution lies in setting up a Small Government and the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity to ensure freedom. Jacques Garello, president of Aleps and board member of the IREF, wrote an op-ed underlining this issue.

What if the « green economy » was just a joke? It has become trendy to label every activity as green. Thus environmentalism seems to be at the heart of the economy. Lucas Léger, IREF researcher, analyzed the Happy Planet Index and reveals the trick.

Nicolas Lecaussin analyzed the French President François Hollande’s interview on March 28 on TV. Nothing has come out of it: no reform, no tax decreases, no incentives. On the contrary, as Nicolas Lecaussin pointed out, François Hollande “stubbornly continues on the path of tax hikes and proposals remote from economic realities.”

This is an unexpected outcome of the Cypriot “bail out – bail in”. The fact that the Cypriot Government is now able to control money transfers and cash withdrawals is a threat for the European market. Can it still be called a free market if restrictions are applied on the ability to move money? Isn’t it also a denial of property rights?