The Swedish education market is one of the freest of the world. As such, it is one of the most interesting to study. Authored by Jacob Arfwedson, the IREF report “Vouchers and Free Schools: the Swedish Experience” provides striking insights into the dynamics of a budding free market in schooling.
Companies & Regulation
Commentators often tend to link immigration to social problems and high unemployment. But as shown by the Swedish Reform Institute in a comprehensive study published in January 2013, this is not the case, on the contrary.
By Jacob Arfwedson
For global capitalism to reach optimal eclosion, there are several basic conditions:
– free trade: companies are allowed to sell wherever they sense a profitable opportunity;
– the tech revolution: production may take place anywhere, whereas selling may be done thousands of miles from the point of production;
– open communications: without a reasonably modern infrastructure – including telecoms, ports, airports etc – the network effects known as globalisation will not pay off;
– protection of intellectual property rights: platform companies like IKEA, Wal-Mart or Dell would be worthless without this provision;
– the right to be wrong, i.e. the right to fail which is inherent in and necessary to any entrepreneurial activity.
By Alexandre Diehl, Lawyer and IREF research Fellow
For the past few weeks, and as Google has announced “bad” results on the financial markets, the media are gurgling with strange and technical news on a possible tax audit for the company. What is going on? Has Google broken the law, or are the French yet again attacking a success story out of envy? Has the government found another cash-cow?
IREF has asked its scientific director, prof. Enrico Colombatto (Turin) to provide a periodic update on EU regulations. Policies adopted by Brussels in 2012 did not help to surmount the crisis: what will happen in 2013?
A petition was submitted by French MPs to the Constitutional Council regarding the limitation on the wealth tax and the new regulations which were to take into account “virtual” incomes.
On 28 November 2012, IREF and the French Taxpayers Association addressed an argumentary (see attachment in French) to the members of the National Assembly, urging them to seize the Constitutional Council in this matter. The MPs replied favourably and passed on the request to the Constitutional Council on 20 December.
Topics (glossaire)
Effects of taxation on European multi-nationals’ financing and profits
by
Stefan Lutz
Important determinants of multinational firms’ choice of location include, besides resource cost and infrastructure, the taxation regime through its effects on international pricing and profits. This paper investigates the effects of tax rates on firms’ profits and financing decisions by analyzing a panel of several hundred thousand European firms for the years 1985 to 2010. Results indicate that taxation has a negative effect on overall firm profits but not on returns on shareholder funds.
By Jean-Philippe Delsol
The fiscal frenzy which has seized the French socialists not only means that the economy grinds to a halt. It is attacking the very foundations of society by destroying entrepreneurship and responsibility. Taxes are raining on the people and the promised shelters often disappear before they have even been introduced. The 2013 finance bill has announced confiscatory tax rates on incomes, capital gains, and the payroll taxes will be increased as well. But the socialists are shooting themselves in the foot: such tax rates will destroy wealth and drive out entrepreneurs, capital, businesses and young people. Thus tax revenues will fall.
Topics (glossaire)
Individual responsibility and social preferences for redistribution: an experimental study
This paper provides both a theoretical framework and an experimental test to analyze how individual responsibility affects social preferences for redistribution in settings where individuals are differentially subjected to the probability of a productivity shock. Our results confirm the predictions of the theoretical section of the paper which presents the redistribution game as a public good game.
The founder of the Adam Smith Institute, Dr. Madsen Pirie, visited IREF on Thursday 15 November to present his book Think Tank: The Story of the Adam Smith Institute (Biteback Publishing, 2012)
After discussing the specificity of the think tank as an independent influence on policy, and the nuts and bolts of policy-making during Thatcherism in the UK, Madsen Pirie offered the following conclusion.