regulation

In recent years, the gig economy has dramatically reshaped the nature of work across the European Union. Platforms like Uber, Deliveroo, and Upwork have provided flexible opportunities to millions who…

Introduction Financial regulators and governments have made much of their success in restoring the global financial system to a state of stability after the Global Financial Crisis and the Eurozone…

Cars are bad. More cars mean more accidents, pollution, climate change and congestion. Less cars are the way to go, whatever it takes. Or so the story goes. In 1999…

Morocco faces a pressing challenge in water scarcity, posing significant hurdles to its socio-economic progress. Ranked among the nations with the lowest water resources per person by the World Bank,…

At a dinner early in July the CEO of NatWest bank group (formerly known as RBS) Dame Allison Rose told a senior BBC journalist that the high-net-worth subsidiary of the…

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.

6 lines against 20! In Germany, the gross salary is taxed by only few contributions (tax on salaries, solidarity, pension fee, Church). It was understood that flexibility is much more…

Portugal is traditionally a leftist country. Since the Carnation Revolution in 1974, in which the Left threw out the fascist government of Marcelo Caetano, it is fashionable in Portugal to be leftist and being labeled socialist. If a proof was needed, in the 2011 elections, all 6 parties in parliament claimed to be leftist parties, and all the three parties who signed the Troika memorandum (yes, the ones who signed it were: PS, PSD and CDS/PP) have Social or Socialist in its very name.

It is often rightly pointed out that the EU has (so far) no power to tax. True. But it has the power to regulate and uses it! If both, taxation and regulation have a profound impact on companies’ and, if only indirectly, on consumers’ decisions, taxation attracts more public attention largely because data on taxation are more readily available. As a consequence, the impact of EU and member states regulations on our economies tends to be underestimated. How can we correct for this? A look at the work done in the US by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, will provide some inspiration.

As voices are heard everyday to “regulate” and “discipline” the finance industry, Lawrence H. White, Professor at George Mason University, Virginia and top scholar in money and banking, bring to our attention this very relevant quote from William Graham Sumner (1840-1910), Yale Professor, historian and sociologist.