James Alm - Böcker

This book presents 15 original papers and commentaries by a distinguished group of tax policy and tax administration experts. Using international examples, they highlight the state of knowledge of tax reform, present new thinking about the issue, and analyze useful policy options. The book’s general goal is to examine the current and emerging challenges facing tax reformers and to assess possible directions future reforms are likely to take. More specific themes include distributional issues, how to tax capital income, how to design specific taxes (e.g., the income tax, the value-added tax, the property tax), how to consider the politics and administrative aspects of tax reform, and how to combine the separate insights into comprehensive tax reform.

Over the last several decades, there has been a growing interest in theoretical, empirical, and experimental work on all aspects of tax compliance and tax evasion. The essays in this volume summarize the existing state of knowledge of tax compliance and tax evasion, present new thinking about this issue, and analyze the empirical relevance of these new perspectives. The original essays in this volume represent an attempt to provide a framework on compliance that moves beyond the economics-of-crime perspective, one that provides a more complete understanding of individual (and group) decisions, and one that is more consistent with empirical evidence. It is the insights of behavioural economics that provide much of the bases for these essays and the main theme running through this book is that the basic model of individual choice must be expanded, by introducing some aspects of behaviour or motivation considered explicitly by other social sciences.

Over the last several decades, there has been a growing interest in theoretical, empirical, and experimental work on all aspects of tax compliance and tax evasion. The essays in this volume summarize the existing state of knowledge of tax compliance and tax evasion, present new thinking about this issue, and analyze the empirical relevance of these new perspectives. The original essays in this volume represent an attempt to provide a framework on compliance that moves beyond the economics-of-crime perspective, one that provides a more complete understanding of individual (and group) decisions, and one that is more consistent with empirical evidence. It is the insights of behavioural economics that provide much of the bases for these essays and the main theme running through this book is that the basic model of individual choice must be expanded, by introducing some aspects of behaviour or motivation considered explicitly by other social sciences.

This book presents 15 original papers and commentaries by a distinguished group of tax policy and tax administration experts. Using international examples, they highlight the state of knowledge of tax reform, present new thinking about the issue, and analyze useful policy options. The book’s general goal is to examine the current and emerging challenges facing tax reformers and to assess possible directions future reforms are likely to take. More specific themes include distributional issues, how to tax capital income, how to design specific taxes (e.g., the income tax, the value-added tax, the property tax), how to consider the politics and administrative aspects of tax reform, and how to combine the separate insights into comprehensive tax reform.

In recent decades countries around the world have seen a wide diversity of tax reforms, both in major systematic changes, and through more specific areas of tax, such as value-added and income tax. The results of these reforms, however, have been unequal, and many issues remain unresolved. With advances in globalization, technology and regional integration, the issue of adapting tax systems in developing countries to new economic environments is becoming ever more pressing. This research review surveys the best research from the past three decades on tax reform in developing countries to highlight the state of knowledge of tax reform, analyse useful policy options and present new and critical approaches to this critical issue.

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.

It is hard to think of anyone who has contributed so much and so widely to research in international public finance in the last 40 years as has Richard Bird. This volume of essays emerged from a conference dedicated to him. It also expands on our understanding of international public finance.Richard Bird's academic and applied work has always benefited from a far-reaching involvement with, and knowledge of, relevant policy issues in many countries around the world. The range of public finance issues to which he has contributed over the years covers practically the whole gamut of the public finance discipline: tax policy, tax administration, the interdependency between the two, intergovernmental fiscal relations, public expenditure policy, and fiscal management processes. The topics covered in this book reflect the wide contributions of Richard Bird to the subject of international public finance, including original reviews of intergovernmental fiscal relations, fiscal policy, and tax evasion and tax administration, all with a special focus on transition and developing countries. These essays, by top scholars in their own right, will deepen our own understanding of relevant problems and issues in international public finance, much like Richard Bird has been doing for many years, and will be of interest to economists, policymakers and students.

Indonesia is currently facing some severe challenges, both in political affairs and in economic management. One of these challenges is the recently enacted decentralization program, now well underway, which promises to have some wide-ranging consequences. This edited volume presents original papers, written by a select group of widely recognized and distinguished scholars, that take a hard, objective look at the many effects of decentralization on economic and political issues in Indonesia. There are many questions about this program: how will it be implemented, is there capacity at the local level to implement its reforms, is there sufficient local political accountability to make it work, and how will the decentralization affect the broader program of economic growth and stabilization? Topics covered include: the historical and political dimensions of decentralization, its macroeconomic effects, its effects on poverty alleviation, the assignment of expenditure and revenue functions across levels of government, the design of transfers, the role of natural resource taxation and the effects of local government borrowing.An authoritative, comprehensive collection, Reforming Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations and the Rebuilding of Indonesia will be of interest to economists and policy makers as well as students of public finance, development, and Asian economics.