The index of leading economic indicators first developed by the NBER remains a popular informal forecasting tool in spite of the original criticism that its use represents "measurement without theory. " This paper seeks to evaluate the performance of the index in comparison to alternative time...

In the past decade, economists have be-gun to realize that inflation, even when fully anticipated, constitutes a great deal more than a tax on money balances. The primary reason for inflation's wider impact is the existence of a tax system designed with stable prices in mind. This paper offers a...

In a recent article in this Journal, Robin Boadway has argued that the appropriate requirement for neutrality is that the present value of the returns from an initial investment of [1pound], using the social discount rate, should be equal for all projects undertaken at the margin. We have few...

In this paper we explore the issue of wealth maximization and the implied behavior of the firm, paying particular attention to the results discussed above and how they are affected by the existence of capital income taxes. Our results indicate that a tax structure similar to that in existence in...

There is probably no specific problem in tax analysis which has generated as much study and discussion among economists as the question of how to formulate "neutral" tax incentives for investment. Yet no consensus has been reached concerning the proper approach to take when adjusting taxes....

In recent years many contributions have appeared which examine the effects of corporate and personal taxation on firm financial policy. However, there has yet to appear an adequate explanation of why corporations continue to distribute dividends despite their disadvantageous tax treatment. We...

In economic analyses of the effects of tax policies, one commonly encounters discussions of the equivalence of apparently different policies, where equivalence is defined as the policies having the same impact on fundamental economic outcomes. These related tax policies may differ in many...

To many observers, the current recession provides compelling circumstances for renewed fiscal policy activism. But the strong support for fiscal policy intervention reflects a renewed belief in policy activism that had already appeared before the present crisis. However, the recent debate about...

In this paper, I review US federal budget rules and present some evidence on their possible effects. From an analysis of how components of the federal budget behaved under the different budget regimes, it appears that the rules did have some effects, rather than simply being statements of policy...

As a share of GDP, U.S. federal tax revenues from nonfinancial corporations have held relatively constant since the early 1980s, after falling precipitously during the late 1960s and the 1970s. But this relative constancy masks offsetting trends in the ratio of nonfinancial C corporation profits...