Why is it so difficult to tax the rich? Evidence from German policy-makers

Author(s):  
Florian Fastenrath ◽  
Paul Marx ◽  
Achim Truger ◽  
Helena Vitt
Keyword(s):  
1973 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward J. Williams

For the past couple of decades the Latin Americans, like their brethren in Africa and Asia, have been hell-bent in search of ‘development’ or ‘modernization’. While the Latin Americans were on the firing line, scholars and policy-makers in both the rich nations and the poor nations were involved in setting out an intellectual framework for analyzing the developmental process. New concepts to explain the meaning of development were devised; innovative measurements to gauge the level of development were proposed; a new vocabulary to capture the nuances of development was put forth.


2015 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui Graça Feijó

Xanana Gusmão recently mentioned that a “Second Maubere Miracle” is underway, implying that a major political reform will soon shake the roots of Timor-Leste's public administration. Decentralization, defined in a very broad sense, has been a constitutional mandate since independence, but successive governments have failed to engage this reform despite paying lip service to its necessity. This essay reviews the options before the policy makers – both in theoretical terms (distinguishing between the various definitions of decentralization) and in the pragmatic forms that have been contemplated so far – and discusses their implications for the process of rooting a modern democracy in the country both at the intermediate, district level and at the grassroots, suku (village) level. For this purpose, the essay brings together the author's own field research and the rich literature that has emerged in the recent past, including contributions by Timorese colleagues.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
OLIVER P. HAUSER ◽  
GORDON T. KRAFT-TODD ◽  
DAVID G. RAND ◽  
MARTIN A. NOWAK ◽  
MICHAEL I. NORTON

AbstractFour experiments examine how lack of awareness of inequality affect behaviour towards the rich and poor. In Experiment 1, participants who became aware that wealthy individuals donated a smaller percentage of their income switched from rewarding the wealthy to rewarding the poor. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants who played a public goods game – and were assigned incomes reflective of the US income distribution either at random or on merit – punished the poor (for small absolute contributions) and rewarded the rich (for large absolute contributions) when incomes were unknown; when incomes were revealed, participants punished the rich (for their low percentage of income contributed) and rewarded the poor (for their high percentage of income contributed). In Experiment 4, participants provided with public education contributions for five New York school districts levied additional taxes on mostly poorer school districts when incomes were unknown, but targeted wealthier districts when incomes were revealed. These results shed light on how income transparency shapes preferences for equity and redistribution. We discuss implications for policy-makers.


2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-115
Author(s):  
P.P. Sajimon

Climate change and disasters are fast emerging as the most significant challenges of the 21st century as global risks with impacts far beyond just the environment and implications on national security and development. As the world continues its contemporary patterns of production and consumption, the future is at immense risk. Climate Change has the potential to alter the ability of the earth’s physical and biological systems to provide goods and services essential for sustainable development. Today, a number of mainstream population and environment groups are claiming that population growth is a major cause of climate change and that lesser birth rates are the solution. If we cannot stabilize population, there is not an ecosystem on earth that we can save. If developing countries cannot stabilize their populations almost immediately, many of them face the disintegration of ecosystem. But in reality, even if we could today achieve zero population growth that would barely touch the climate problem — where we need to cut emissions by 50 to 80 percent by mid-century. Given existing income inequalities, it is inescapable that over consumption by the rich few is the key problem, rather than overpopulation of the poor many. In the absence of any commitment in the next two decades, their economies would become locked into a trajectory of elevated emissions and unsustainable development, while the cost of reversing the trend will become prohibitively high. This paper examines several outstanding issues on the interface between population and environment. Significantly, the study would come out with some policy recommendations to the policy makers.


2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 559-599 ◽  
Author(s):  
SARA DICKEY

AbstractRecent economic changes in India have coincided with a dramatic change in the concept of a ‘middle class’ in the south Indian city of Madurai. Whereas previous sets of class identities were overwhelmingly dichotomous (for example, the rich and the poor, or the ‘big people’ and ‘those who have nothing’), the middle class has now become a highly elaborated component of local class structures and identities. It is also a contested category; moreover, its indigenous boundaries differ from those most often used by scholars, marketers, or policy-makers. Drawing from research over the past decade, this paper examines local definitions of ‘middleness’ and the moralized meanings ascribed to it. Whilst being ‘in the middle’ is a source of pride and pleasure, connoting both achievement and enhanced self-control, it is simultaneously a source of great tension, bringing anxiety over the critical and damaging scrutiny of onlookers. For each positive aspect of a middle-class identity that emphasizes security and stability, there is a negative ramification or consequence that highlights the precariousness and potential instability of middle-class life. In exploring each of these aspects, I pay attention to the explicitly performative features of class identities. I conclude by considering the epistemological and experiential insights we gain into the construction of emergent class categories by focusing on self-ascribed identities and their performance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 208-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Layton

This commentary is a personal account of the evolution of the concept of a marketing system, from being central to the vision of macromarketing inspiring a group of scholars nearly 60 years ago, to playing a central role today in bringing together the rich set of ideas, concepts, frameworks and concerns that are part of contemporary macromarketing thought. It provides a basis for, and indeed, argues for, the integration of both marketing and macromarketing thinking in practice and in teaching in response to the micro and macro challenges facing managers and policy makers in most human communities as they seek to find a way through increasingly complex environments shaped by physical, social, economic, and technological forces interacting though space and time at all levels of society. It was written to serve as the introduction to a SAGE Publications virtual book concerned with the past, present and future of thinking and practice related to marketing systems.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burcu Toğral Koca

Soğuk Savaş'ın sona ermesinin ardından, ulus ötesi etkileriyle küresel gelişmeler, güvenlik konusunda çalışan akademisyenleri, politika yapıcıları, siyasetçileri devlet-merkezli ve askeri-odaklı güvenlik tanımının ötesine taşımıştır. Bu dönüşümle, kalkınmayı güvenlikle ilişkilendiren söylemler de ivme kazanmıştır. Bu söylemlerin ve güvenlik ile kalkınma arasında kurulan bağın göç ve hareketlilik olguları üzerinde de önemli etkileri olmuştur. Zenginler, vasıflı işçiler, “gelişmiş” Batı’nın turistleri serbest dolaşım hakkından sorunsuz bir şekilde yararlanırken; aynı hakkı kullanmak isteyen, sığınmacıları, mültecileri, fakir, vasıfsız ve “düzensiz” göçmenleri kapsayan ve “artık nüfus” olarak nitelendirilebilecek gruplar yoğun ve sert teknolojik/bürokratik kontrol ve güvenlik pratiklerine maruz kalmaya başlamıştır. Bu pratiklerden bir tanesi, Avrupa Birliği’nin (AB) dış sınırlarını bu “istenmeyen”/”artık nüfusa” karşı korumak için faaliyete geçirilen Frontex’in kurulmasıdır. Operasyonel ve kurumsal yapısı itibariyle militarize bir organ olan Frontex, “artık nüfus”tan doğabilecek sözde tehditlere karşı bir kontrol teknolojisine dönüşmüştür. Bu çalışma, biyopolitikayı bir yönetim teknolojisi olarak ele alan Foucaultcu yaklaşım temelinde, bu değişim ve gelişmeleri eleştirel bir yolla çözümlemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Bunu yaparken, ilk olarak, AB’nin göç rejimini şekillendiren ve biyopolitikanın bir yansıması olan kalkınma ve güvenlik arasında kurulan bağ tahlil edilmiştir. Daha sonra, Frontex ve Frontex’in Türkiye-Yunanistan sınırındaki rolü incelenerek bu tahlil daha somut hale getirilmiştir. Son olarak, Frontex’in operasyonlarının göçmen haklarını ihlal ettiği ortaya konmuş ve bu nedenle AB ve ilgili devletler tarafından geliştirilen biyopolitik göç rejimine karşı insan odaklı, eleştirel bir siyasi duruşun geliştirilmesi gerektiği vurgulanmıştır. ENGLISH TITLE & ABSTRACTBiopolitics, security and the role of Frontex on the Turkish-Greek borderFollowing the end of the Cold War, global developments with their transnational effects have induced security scholars, policy makers and politicians to move beyond state-centric and military-focused conceptualization of security. In this transformation, discourses linking development to security have gained momentum. To put it differently, “liberal” states of the West have constructed a biopolitical distinction between “developed” and “underdeveloped” populations and administered the latter as a security threat to the former. Such framings and the nexus between security and development have had important repercussions for the mobility of people. The rich, skilled labours, tourists from “developed” West have come to enjoy the right to free movement without much of interruption. On the other hand, the “surplus” population, including asylum seekers, refugees, poor, unskilled and “irregular” migrants have been exposed to intense technological/bureaucratic control and surveillance practices. One of them is the introduction of Frontex for policing the European Union (EU)’s external borders against this “unwanted”/”surplus” population in conformity with new discourses linking development to security. This militarized body equipped with war-like devices has turned into a technology of containment related to the so-called threats stemming from “surplus” population. On the basis of these transformations, this paper aims to problematize and unpack these issues through building upon Foucauldian approaches on biopolitics as a technology of government. In particular, the paper, first, deconstructs the nexus between development and security in the EU’s migration regime. This analysis is made more tangible by looking into the activities of Frontex on the Turkish-Greek border. Finally, this paper draws the attention to the human rights implications of this security architecture and resultant practices. 


Urbanisation ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 245574712096519
Author(s):  
Thijs Bouman ◽  
Linda Steg

Cities can play a pivotal role in accelerating climate action, that is, climate mitigation and adaption. Yet, the success of cities’ climate strategies strongly depends on the cities’ residents, who often have to accept, adopt, undertake and participate in climate actions. This article discusses how a better understanding of city residents’ motives—particularly the personal and group values that underlie their climate actions—could foster climate action in cities. Importantly, it engages with the rich literature in the social sciences on personal values, which—though typically overlooked by policy makers—highlights the relevance of focussing on personal biospheric values (i.e., caring about nature and the environment) in explaining and promoting residents’ climate actions. Additionally, the article provides novel insights into how perceived biospheric group values (i.e., the extent to which relevant groups are perceived to endorse biospheric values) can strengthen the value-base for climate actions, particularly among those residents who weakly endorse biospheric values. Critically, it provides concrete examples of how cities can strengthen the group value-base for climate actions, thereby showing how cities can play a unique role in engaging residents in climate action.


2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hossana Twinomurinzi ◽  
Roy Johnson

The beauty of qualitative research is in its appreciation of context, pluralism and diversity. However, this appreciation creates a problem; the results from such studies are often dissonant or appear to be disconnected. On the other hand, there is a growing acceptance and appeal for the rich insights gained from qualitative studies in Information Systems. In this paper, we propose the Qualitative Meta-Synthesis as a credible method to create substantive Information Systems theories from qualitative studies. We reflect on how Qualitative Meta-Synthesis has been used in other fields before proposing a set of guidelines. The paper makes a contribution to practice and theory. To theory, the paper offers emergent fields in Information Systems, especially those that depend a great deal on qualitative research (such as community informatics, e-government and ICT for development) a tool with which to create micro-, meso- and macro- level theories. For practice, the paper offers an approach that could assist policy makers to make sense of the dissonant findings from qualitative studies towards the creation of policy.


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajay Phatak

This essay is focused on an important subject discussed all over the country and the world, especially in political circles and among policymakers. There is a need established that to be able to pull individuals and communities out of poverty, we need that, meaningful employment is generated for a very large number of people. World over, certain approaches have been used by the policy makers which seem to increase the divide between the haves and have-nots. The policy of industrialization is leading nations into widening the gap between rich and the poor. It is also creating undesirable side effects by way of ‘pollution’ and depletion of resources at an ever increasing pace. This situation leads to the author’s belief that something is not right. Such policies will not lead to sustainable livelihoods for masses. Hence this attempt to explore alternative policies, which could provide a viable approach to alleviating poverty. Poverty alleviation is indeed a noble goal. All of us must also be seriously concerned about the difference in the standard of living between the rich and the poor. Moreover, our objective must be to see how the masses can live well and peacefully. Around the world and within our country, being unemployed is not the best state to be in. Employment in this context is gainful occupation. The impact of such unemployment has been disastrous. This has led to militancy on one hand and ongoing unrest in many a city on the other. The way forward, as proposed since many decades and being followed incessantly, is “consumerism” to help us get out of this mess. Industrial mode of employment generation has been linked to production and productivity. But all aspects of Industrial production are linked to use of natural resources to produce intermediate goods. This means any additional employment generated would dip further into the natural resource reserves. Can one think of a very different model of generating employment? Employment which does not dip into the reserves? Employment that can restore biological resources? There seems to be an opportunity for more thinking at the policy level to understand the root causes of unemployment and how we can tackle these for creating employment that can sustain, resulting in sustainable elimination of poverty.


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