Companies & Regulation

In a recent article, Lucas Léger, an IREF associate researcher, pointed out that even if the research is a French Government priority, entrepreneurship and innovation are not supported and the basic research would better off without Government intervention.

The IREF’s aim is to defend and promote economic freedom and fiscal competition. Our aim goes against the OECD’s last study that was commissioned by the G20 and called “Addressing Base Erosion and Profit Shifting”. It will be presented on February 15th at the G20 Summit in Moscow. The OECD claims that “global solutions are needed to ensure that tax systems do not unduly favour multinational enterprises, leaving citizens and small businesses with bigger tax bills.”

Prof. Enrico Colombatto (Turin), IREF scientific director, has provided his update on EU policies. This month, he describes sovereign bailouts, the probable change of monetary policies, and the repayment of ECB loans.

Domestic. How are the high profile struggling countries faring – Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Ireland?

Despite the January media narrative that the worst of the crisis is over and the bailouts are working, the specific positions of the four countries challenge this position.

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.

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:

– 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.

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.