Until the early 1990s, the discussions on fiscal policy primarily centered on the functions of economic stabilization, income redistribution and resource allocation. Long-term growth was not usually viewed as an end itself, and fiscal policy was often not sufficiently tailored to the different...

What is the current state of sovereign credit risk across Euro zone? Does the recent fiscal crisis extend to other (non Euro zone) countries? Is Greece the center of the problem? How did the current fiscal crisis in the Euro area start? Who is behind it? Why can it evolve? How can it be...

The recent European economic crisis has dramatically exposed the failures of the various institutional mechanisms in place to maintain economic stability in Europe, and has unveiled the difficulty in achieving international coordination on fiscal and financial stability policies. Drawing on the...

In light of the UK Coalition Government's announced intention to reform APD (Air Passenger Duty), this article examines the design flaws making APD an inadequate environmental tax. By identifying the misconceived consequences and environmental inefficiencies of this blunt instrument, the need...

This paper describes recent trends on the efficiency of stabilisers in the European Union. Using both macro evidence on the cyclical sensitivity of budget deficit to economic activity, and micro evidence on the tax and expenditure profiles, we conclude, in agreement with the recent literature,...

I relate hours worked with taxes on consumption and labor for Portugal, France, Spain, United Kingdom and United States. From 1986 to 2001, hours per worker in Portugal decreased from 35.1 to 32.6. With the parameters for Portugal, the model predicts hours worked in 2001 with an error of only 12...

This brief provides a short guiding tour to the Euro zone crisis. It looks at the current situation, the context in which the zone has to deal with such a situation, the way we got here, and the possible way out. The latter outlines a set of minimum steps required to make the euro sustainable

The EU in 2020 is in the midst of a triple crisis of unemployment, public health and environmental collapse. These aspects are deeply intertwined and should be tackled together, since they all reflect structural problems of the European labor market. Job Guarantee is the proposed fiscal tool,...

The paper is a primer on EU VAT. It explains the notion of territory, taxable Person, Taxable Transaction, Place of Taxable Transaction, Chargeable event, Taxable Amount, Tax Rates, Exemptions, Deductions and Persons liable for payment of tax

The paper explains why VAT is replacing the old cascading sales tax system all over the world because of the competitive advantage it offers to nations. The paper also goes into other strategic considerations such as the preference of VAT taxation over VAT exemption, and the use of lower VAT to...