Income Taxation, Productive Government Expenditure and Stochastic Growth: On Conditions for an Optimal Policy and the Role of the Risk Premium

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christiane Clemens
Keyword(s):  
Risk Premium ◽  
Optimal Policy ◽  
Government Expenditure ◽  
Income Taxation ◽  
Stochastic Growth ◽  
Productive Government Expenditure

scholarly journals Do policies and institutions matter for pre-tax income inequality? Cross-country evidence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damián Vergara
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Trade Openness ◽  
Government Expenditure ◽  
Rent Seeking ◽  
Income Taxation ◽  
Political Exclusion ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractDo policies and institutions matter for pre-tax income inequality? I build an annual panel of 43 countries for the period 1980–2016 to document cross-country facts. I find robust correlations between pre-tax income shares and economic policy—financial development, trade openness, government expenditure, and income taxation—even after controlling for economic development. I further find that proxies of institutional quality—e.g., state development, corruption, or political exclusion—mediate the relationship between top income shares and economic policy, in particular for trade openness and government expenditure. The role of institutions in allowing or limiting rent-seeking can rationalize the results.

scholarly journals Critical Analysis of the Oversight Role of the Education Portfolio Committee in Parliament of South Africa

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 72 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. W. Manona
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Government Expenditure ◽  
Adverse Consequence ◽  
Senior Executives ◽  
Effectiveness And Efficiency ◽  
Ruling Party

There is a prevalent assumption in South Africa that Parliament is guided by the ideals of democracy, accountability, transparency and accessibility. However, there are still gaps and challenges as far as theoversight role of Parliament is concerned, despite the presence of committees that have been established to oversee the executive and relevant structures of government, government activities and public finances. There is widespread maladministration and misuse of government expenditure in government departments. This paper investigates the oversight role of parliamentary committees to determine their relative influence on accountability and democracy in the execution of functions by public functionaries. The aim of the paper is to provide an understanding into inherent problems in the oversight role of Parliament in the democratic dispensation in South Africa, which seems not to have been given serious attention in the academia, considering the pivotal role Parliament plays in the lives of citizens of the country. These oversight committees have selectively held Senior Executives or Ministers accountable for their ineffectiveness, misuse of government expenditure and maladministration. This could be attributed to the fact that oversight in South Africa does not seem to be properly understood and implemented as it should be. Moreover, the influence of the majoritarian authority of the ruling party in committees seems to be colluding with the executive. Failure to take action against cases of omission brings questions on the effectiveness and efficiency of the oversight role of Parliament. The adverse consequence is the delay in the provision of good quality services to poor communities. This paper employed the theoretical approach as a method of data collection. Conclusions have been drawn that the shortcomings of the parliamentary committees compromise accountability and good governance in service delivery.

scholarly journals Optimal Policy with Heterogeneous Preferences

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Kaplow
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Optimal Policy ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
Social Welfare Function ◽  
Income Taxation ◽  
Heterogeneous Preferences ◽  
Commodity Taxation ◽  
Policy Rules ◽  
The Social

Abstract Optimal policy rules—including those regarding income taxation, commodity taxation, public goods, and externalities—are typically derived in models with homogeneous preferences. This article reconsiders many central results for the case in which preferences for commodities, public goods, and externalities are heterogeneous. When preference differences are observable, standard second-best results in basic settings are unaffected, except those for the optimal income tax. Optimal levels of income taxation may be higher, the same, or lower on types who derive more utility from various goods, depending on the nature of preference differences and the concavity of the social welfare function. When preference differences are unobservable, all policy rules may change. The determinants of even the direction of optimal rule adjustments are many and subtle.

scholarly journals Standard of living, quality of life and per capita GDP: a South African experience

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 882-889 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raphael Tabani Mpofu
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Government Spending ◽  
Government Expenditure ◽  
Standard Of Living ◽  
Role Of Government ◽  
Per Capita

This study looked at the phenomenon of the quality of life (QoL) as measured by the Human Development Index (HDI), which is a composite statistic used to rank countries by the level of “human development”. Measuring and determining what is QoL is not an easy task. In this study, using HDI as the yardstick for QoL, the concepts of standard of living and per capita income were examined closely in relation to the role of government in its public expenditure programmes and how these programmes in turn influenced QoL. This research question was seen as the key to addressing the phenomenon of QoL. In particular, the role of government expenditure on health and education seems to signify the commitment of a government in improving the HDI or QoL. Using data on government expenditure of South Africa for the period 1995 to 2011, the relationships amongst these variables were examined. The findings indicate that there seems to be a significant correlation between HDI and government spending on health and education as a percentage of GDP, but there seems to be of no significance to include the variable government spending on health and education as a percentage of total government spending. The findings tell us that between 1995 and 2011, government spending on education as a percentage of GDP has had a positive impact on HDI. However, government spending on health as a percentage of GDP has had a retarding effect as shown by the negative coefficient of variation. It then implies that for South Africa to realize the MDG goals and improve on the HDI, public spending on health as a percentage of GDP needs to be significantly increased.

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