Public Economics

The livestock sector is emerging as one of the fastest growing agricultural sub-sectors in India and the expectations are that this growth could further accelerate due to growing incomes and the high income elasticity of demand for livestock products. Given the size and relatively equitable distribution of livestock in India, this presents an excellent opportunity for the country to boost rural incomes and accelerate the pace of poverty reduction. But, successful capitalisation of such opportunities requires a policy regime that facilitates growth in productivity at the farm level as well as in the processing sector. The productive potential of animals depends crucially on the quality of nutrition, genetic material and the animal health system, and on all these counts, India has a poor record. The public sector continues to be the primary provider of veterinary services, and the deteriorating fiscal situation of most state governments is making it extremely difficult to either expand the reach of these services or improve the quality of service delivery. Although, on efficiency grounds, there is good rationale for commercialised delivery of these services, serious concerns prevail in India about the equity implications of private sector delivery or full cost recovery within the government system. Evaluation of the desirability of user fees or private delivery of livestock services requires an understanding of the factors influencing the demand for these services. This paper examines the nature of demand for veterinary services in three states of India and presents first estimates of demand elasticities for veterinary services. The results indicate that price is not an important determinant of the decision to use these services. Also, practically no variation is found in price elasticities across income groups. These results suggest that the fears of sharp declines in the use of these services as a result of full cost recovery and/or private sector delivery are unfounded.

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This chapter describes the challenges of veterinary service delivery in an environment where most livestock keepers are smallholders. Studies in 4 states of India, representing different economic, social, market and production contexts, have analysed the distributional outcomes of an animal health policy. This chapter summarizes the results of these studies to illustrate the contribution that economic analysis can make to animal health policy.

The livestock sector is emerging as one of the fastest growing agricultural sub-sectors in India and the expectations are that this growth could further accelerate due to growing incomes and the high income elasticity of demand for livestock products. Given the size and relatively equitable distribution of livestock in India, this presents an excellent opportunity for the country to boost rural incomes and accelerate the pace of poverty reduction. But, successful capitalisation of such opportunities requires a policy regime that facilitates growth in productivity at the farm level as well as in the processing sector. The productive potential of animals depends crucially on the quality of nutrition, genetic material and the animal health system, and on all these counts, India has a poor record. The public sector continues to be the primary provider of veterinary services, and the deteriorating fiscal situation of most state governments is making it extremely difficult to either expand the reach of these services or improve the quality of service delivery. Although, on efficiency grounds, there is good rationale for commercialised delivery of these services, serious concerns prevail in India about the equity implications of private sector delivery or full cost recovery within the government system. Evaluation of the desirability of user fees or private delivery of livestock services requires an understanding of the factors influencing the demand for these services. This paper examines the nature of demand for veterinary services in three states of India and presents first estimates of demand elasticities for veterinary services. The results indicate that price is not an important determinant of the decision to use these services. Also, practically no variation is found in price elasticities across income groups. These results suggest that the fears of sharp declines in the use of these services as a result of full cost recovery and/or private sector delivery are unfounded.

In this paper we develop a dynamic model of a multi-sector economy with an informal sector and segmented labour markets first to demonstrate how informal production and employment decline in transition towards the steady state, and second to analyse the impact of various labour market policies at the steady state. Our results primarily indicate that informal employment share increases with minimum wage, and decreases with reductions in the payroll taxes, moreover, reducing the tax imposed on employer is more effective in reducing the informal employment share, while reducing the tax imposed on employee is more effective in increasing consumer felicity.

This is an important volume, containing contributions by an outstanding group of authors on some of the central issues of the Doha agenda negotiations. Distinguishing features of the volume include its comprehensive coverage of the issues, and the way the authors explain them in comprehensible terms, covering both the historical context and the debates currently raging in the WTO. ' -Will Martin,The World Bank, US Agricultural Policy Reform and the WTO provides insights into the effects of the Uruguay Round WTO agreement on agricultural policy and global markets, and considers what is at stake in the Doha Development Agenda Round.

We estimate revealed willingness to pay for animal welfare using a panel mixed logit model. We utilize a unique household level panel, combining real purchases with survey data on perceived public and private good attributes of different types of eggs. We estimate willingness to pay for organic eggs controlling for trust in a positive connection between the public good animal welfare and the organic label and the private good food safety also connected to the label. Our results suggest that in the real world, animal welfare plays a minor role in the demand for agricultural products.

An Individual Company is a new legal entity intended for Micro and Small Enterprise (MSE) actors to obtain legal entity status. However, based on the taxation perspective, establishing an Individual Company raises the consequence of tax imposition on one party that is substantially the same entity, namely MSEs as Individuals and Individual Companies as Legal Entities. This study intends to examine the taxation responsibility attached to the Individual Company as a law entity so taxpayers can carry out their tax obligations. The study method used is normative juridical with descriptive-analytical research specifications and qualitative juridical data analysis. The results of this study indicate that MSE actors who establish themselves as Individual Companies are given Corporate Taxpayer status with all its legal consequences. Direktorat Jenderal Pajak (DJP) needs to make adjustments and relax the Rights and Obligations of Corporate Taxpayers in the form of Individual Companies so tha...

Over the last several decades, Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs) have emerged as a widely accepted method for the presentation of macroeconomic data and an analytical technique for impact analyses at national, regional and village levels. Although there is a large body of literature concerning the construction and application of SAMs, there are only a few impact evaluations with regional and village SAMs. This is particularly evident when focusing on the impact of regional investment projects in developing countries. In this paper, we have attempted to demonstrate how a regional SAM can successfully be applied to evaluate the impact of an irrigation project in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka. This example clearly demonstrates the possibility of using regional and village level SAMs in evaluating post-war development projects, such as infrastructure and irrigation projects, in Sri Lanka.

According to the experts of the GTF workshop the benefits and gains that could be reached (as mentioned in the previous section) can be attained by endorsing and seriously supporting the following recommendations. The experts of the spotlightsTN/GTF Workshop held on 11th / 12th October 2001 in Barcelona hereby recommend the following. 1) The European Commission should endorse the finalisation of the " Generalised Transportation-data Format" Specification (GTF v1.0) while also moving towards the implementation level (see 7-10) in the context of the European Transport policy Information System (ETIS) development projects. 2) The European Commission should endorse to make available its own data and data from any projects and studies undertaken (using the developed GTF Translators) in the GTF format thus reducing costs for future projects by re-use of data and information from previous projects. 3) The European Commission should recommend to its institutions and the member states to support the finalisation of the GTF Specification and to take steps to provide data in the GTF format (using the developed GTF Translators). Please refer to the results of the ATOM project. Format" the European Commission should think about establishing an independent advisory board consisting of scientific, institutional and industrial members. Subsequently this board would work out guidelines for the procedure to establish GTF and would deal with and resolve all administrative and legal matters as well as all questions concerning data provision and transmission rules, issues on the continuing maintenance and updating of GTF etc. 5) The European Commission should consider fostering the world wide dissemination of knowledge on GTF at transport and software development conferences as well as publishing papers on GTF -in detail and generally about the GTF vision-in appropriate and / or relevant scientific and software development journals.

A randomized experiment is used to test whether employees will take actions to lower shortand long-run electricity use when their actions are unobservable and only the firm can benefit. Results suggest that social norms act as a coordinating device supporting worker conservation efforts. Electricity use fell 5.2% on average in buildings that were provided information on their own energy use compared to that in a paired building. The energy reductions have persisted over three years. Feedback on own past usage and provision of promotional information induced smaller and statistically insignificant reductions in electricity use.

The article deals with structural factors affecting decisions about the provision of services in large Slovak cities. In addition to introducing an economic model based on transaction cost theory, models of political decision making regarding the provision of services by cities (ideological model, public choice theory and political risk-aversion model) are described. The article concentrates upon decisions regarding the provision of seven selected services in eight major Slovak cities. In addition to collecting data on the means of providing the selected services, relevant decision makers about the perceived asset specificity and about the measurability of selected services have been interviewed. The findings partly confirm economic hypotheses about the provision of public services, which suggest that oursourcing is expected if the services to be provided are easily measurable. The findings are also consistent with models based on political decision-making, but do not allow to pinpo...

Equivalence scales, used to compare incomes across household types, strongly influence which households have low reported income, affecting public policy priorities. Yet they draw on abstract, often dated evidence and arbitrary judgements, and on comparisons across the income distribution rather than focusing on minimum requirements. Budget standards provide more tangible comparisons of the minimum required by different household types. The Minimum Income Standard (MIS) method, now established in several countries, applies a common methodological framework for compiling budgets, based on public deliberations. This article draws for the first time on results across countries. In all of the four countries examined, it identifies an under-estimation by the OECD scale of the relative cost of children compared to adults, and, in three of the four, an under-estimation of the cost of singles compared to couples. This more systematically corroborates previous, dispersed evidence, and helps ...

In recent times, there have been apprehensions as to whether outlays under Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) result from an oblivious 'one-size-fits-all' decision resulting in 'equal' distribution of resources or targeted in an equitable manner across various states, and within states, ...

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Performance of the public sector is at the core of long-term wealth creation and welfare improvement. Yet, its measurement remains inadequate and flawed with data deficiency. In this paper we propose an extended framework for the assessment of public services performance that accounts for long-term impacts on welfare and empirically evaluate it across twenty-five European countries on the basis of a wide set of proxy indicators. We relate the performance scores to input costs indices and propose a coherent typology of countries that corresponds to the patterns of economic effectiveness of public services. The empirical analysis reveals that, because of differences in input costs across the enlarged EU, the economic effectiveness of public services varies to a much larger extent than the performance, with some relatively large-sized governments (Sweden, Denmark, Austria) being the most effective ones.

Corporate governance related to ESG and options for emission disclosure are being discussed. The presentation lead to a productive dialogue with the CE and the Chair of the Supervisory Board which assured that issues would be considered and a corporate governance structure developed.

Aims: Local governments in the Scandinavian countries are increasingly committed to reduce health inequity through 'health equity in all policies' (HEiAP) governance. There exists, however, only very sporadic implementation evidence concerning municipal HEiAP governance, which is the focus of this study. Methods: Data are based on qualitative thematic network analysis of 20 interviews conducted from 2014 to 2015 with Scandinavian political and administrative practitioners. Results: We identify 24 factors located within three categories; political processes, where insufficient political commitment to health equity goals outside of the health sector and inadequate economic prioritization budget curbs implementation. Concerning evidence, there is a lack of epidemiological data, detailed evidence of health equity interventions as well as indicators relevant for monitoring implementation. Concerted administrative action relates to a lack of vertical support and alignment from the national and the regional level to the local level. Horizontally within the municipality, insufficient coordination across policy sectors inhibits effective health equity governance. Conclusions: A shift away from 'health in all policies' based on a narrow health concept towards 'health equity for all policies' based on a broader concept such as 'sustainability' can improve ownership of health equity policy goals across municipal sectors.

Aims: Local governments in the Scandinavian countries are increasingly committed to reduce health inequity through ‘health equity in all policies’ (HEiAP) governance. There exists, however, only very sporadic implementation evidence concerning municipal HEiAP governance, which is the focus of this study. Methods: Data are based on qualitative thematic network analysis of 20 interviews conducted from 2014 to 2015 with Scandinavian political and administrative practitioners. Results: We identify 24 factors located within three categories; political processes, where insufficient political commitment to health equity goals outside of the health sector and inadequate economic prioritization budget curbs implementation. Concerning evidence, there is a lack of epidemiological data, detailed evidence of health equity interventions as well as indicators relevant for monitoring implementation. Concerted administrative action relates to a lack of vertical support and alignment from the nationa...

This study investigated the nature of the relationship between government expenditure and revenue for Zimbabwe for the Multicurrency period using monthly time series data covering the peri was analysed using Granger (1969) causality tests and Cointergration analysis. that there is independence between government expenditure and government revenue hence providing evidence in support of the Institutional Seperation Hypothesis propounded by and Baghestani and MacNown (1994). Hence policies to curb the budget deficit in Zimbabwe should be directed to other factors like economic growth which affect government expenditure and re

твърди, че позицията за Свободната воля е правилна, а тази на детерминизма е неправилна, и че либертарианството и австрийски икономика са съвместими с първо споменатата, но не и с последната. Еделщайн, Венцел и Салсидо (2016 г.) разкритикуват Блок (2015 г.) на това основание. Настоящата статия е дуплика до Еделщайн, Венцел и Салсидо. В статията се твърди, че позицията на детерминизма е неправилна; и че позицията на свободната воля е правилната, и че свободата на волята е важна както за австрийската икономика, така и за либертарианството.

A. Language Acquisition (FG2) my problem was that I have to learn so many languages…that is another thing about the country. If you go to Germany, you speak only German and then you go to France and you speak only French. Here it is a multilingual, multicultural country. (FG3) The three languages are required for certain jobs. I worked as a primary school teacher for young children and it is difficult to integrate myself because of the problem of the three languages.

Can rational choice modeling explain why Hamas, Taliban, Hezbollah and other radical religious rebels are so lethal? The literature rejects theological explanations. We propose a club framework, which emphasizes the function of voluntary religious organizations as efficient providers of local public goods in the absence of government provision. The sacrifices religious clubs require are economically efficient (Iannaccone (1992)), making them well suited for solving the extreme principal-agent problems faced by terrorist and insurgent organizations. Thus religious clubs can be potent terrorists. That explanation is supported by data on terrorist lethality in the Middle East. The same approach explains why religious clubs often choose suicide attacks. Using three data sources spanning a half century, and comparing suicide attackers to civil war insurgents, we show that suicide attacks are chosen when targets are "hard," i.e., difficult to destroy. Data from Israel/Palestine confirm that prediction. To explain why radical religious clubs specialize in suicide attacks we model the choice of tactics by rebels attacking hard targets, considering the human costs and tactical benefits of suicide attacks. We ask what a suicide attacker would have to believe to be rational. We then embed that attacker and other operatives in a club model. The model has testable implications for tactic choice and damage achieved by clubs and other rebels, which are supported by data on terrorist attacks in the Middle East: Radical religious clubs are more lethal and choose suicide terrorism more often, when they provide benign local public goods. Our results suggest benign tactics to counter terrorism by religious radicals.

Tax fraud remains the greatest challenge to the government across the world, but the alarming rate at which it is being perpetrated in Nigeria is of concern to the government. The government has lost billions of naira as a result of this. The involvement of taxpayers in tax fraud depends on the level at which they perceive the institution of governance. Hence, this study examined the influence of interaction between institutional quality and taxpayers’ behaviors on tax fraud management in south-west Nigeria. The study employed a quantitative method to generate data from the total population of 504,263 respondents. The sample size consisted of 400 taxpayers (companies and businesses) registered with the Federal Inland Revenue Service in southwest Nigeria. The data were analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM). The interaction of institutional quality and taxpayer behaviors on tax fraud management was found to have a significant negative relationshi...

General of Fiscal Balance (DJPK) in the form of quantitative. With panel data analysis and processed using Eviews 9 and Fixed Effect Model (FEM) approach. The result shows that Government Expenditure for infrastructure, education, health and GDP was determined 98% (r-squared) of Poverty Rate simultaneously. Partially the result showed that government expenditure for infrastructure did not have an effect on poverty rate in NTT, government expenditure for education had negative effect on poverty rate in NTT, government expenditure for health did not have an effect on poverty rate in NTT, GDP had a positive effect on poverty rate in NTT.

This article argues that governments in countries that currently permit intensive animal agriculture -especially but not exclusively high-income countries -are, in principle, morally justified in taking steps to restrict or even eliminate intensive animal agriculture to protect public health from the risk of zoonotic pandemics. Unlike many extant arguments for restricting, curtailing, or even eliminating intensive animal agriculture which focus on environmental harms, animal welfare, or the link between animal source food (ASF) consumption and noncommunicable disease, the argument in this article appeals to the value of protecting populations from future global health emergencies and their broad social, economic, and health impacts, taking the SARS-CoV-2 virus as a particularly salient example. The article begins by identifying how intensive animal agriculture contributes to the outbreak (and risk of future outbreaks) of zoonotic diseases. Next, we explore three specific policy options: 1. Incentivizing plant-based and cell-based ASF alternatives through government subsidies; 2. Disincentivizing intensive ASF production through the adoption of a "zoonotic tax"; and 3. Eliminating intensive ASF production through a total ban. We argue that all three of these measures are permissible, although we remain agnostic as to whether these measures are obligatory. We argue for this conclusion on the grounds that each measure is justified by the same sorts of considerations that justify other widely accepted public health interventions, and each is compatible with a variety of theories of justice. We then address potential objections. Finally, we discuss how our novel argument relates to extant ethical arguments in favor or curtailing ASF production and consumption.

ABSTRACTBackgroundSouth Africa has homicide rates six times the global average, predominantly among men, but little is known about male victims. As part of the country’s first ever study of male homicide we compared 2017 male and female victim profiles for selected covariates, against global averages and previous estimates for 2009.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective descriptive study of routine data collected through postmortem investigations, calculating age-standardised mortality rates for manner of death by age, sex and province and male-to-female incidence rate ratios with 95% confidence intervals. We then used generalised linear models and linear regression models to assess the association between sex and victim characteristics including age and mechanism of injury (guns, stabs and blunt force) within and between years.Findings87% of 19,477 homicides in 2017 were males, equating to seven male deaths for every female, with sharp force and firearm discharge the most common exter...

This paper examines how unemployment affects retirement and whether the Unemployment Insurance (UI) system and Social Security (SS) system affect how older workers respond to labor market shocks. To do so, we use pooled cross-sectional data from the March Current Population Survey (CPS) as well as March CPS files matched between one year and the next and longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS). We find that downturns in the labor market increase retirement transitions. The magnitude of this effect is comparable to that associated with moderate changes in financial incentives to retire and to the threat of a health shock to which older workers are exposed. Interestingly, retirements only increase in response to an economic downturn once workers become SS-eligible, suggesting that retirement benefits may help alleviate the income loss associated with a weak labor market. We also estimate the impact of UI generosity on retirement and find little consistent evidence of an effect. This suggests that in some ways SS may serve as a more effective form of unemployment insurance for older workers than UI.

This study examines the determinants of legislative threats (from the US Congress) to the Federal Reserve's prerogatives (e.g., budgetary authority, autonomy, secrecy, etc.). Specifically, two competing theories of legislative threats -one relating the Fed's management of the macro economy and the other to the Fed's expense preference behavior (i.e., its budget-building activity) -are empirically modeled. The results suggest that aspects of both the "macroeconomic model" and the "agency costs/political model" have merit. However, tests of non-nested hypotheses indicate the superiority/dominance of the latter model in explaining variations in legislative threats from Congress over time .

Mentre in molti settori dei servizi e delle strutture comunali sono presenti figure professionali di ruolo di riferimento come assistenti sociali, geometri, architetti, geologi, e altre e per il loro rinnovo vengono svolti periodicamente concorsi, nel settore della cultura invece, e in particolare delle biblioteche, non avviene lo stesso. Perché, secondo lei, da molti Comuni sembra sia stata accantonata l'idea di attivare concorsi per bibliotecari? Perché, in generale, nel nostro paese si ritiene che la cultura sia poco importante. In passato abbiamo addirittura avuto un ministro che ha sostenuto che "con la cultura non si mangia". Da noi c'è anzitutto un clima culturale che non favorisce l'idea di spendere nel mondo della cultura e della ricerca. Viviamo un tempo in cui il pensiero dominante tende a sbeffeggiare la cultura e la scienza: una sorta di ribellione populista contro i saperi, spesso carica di rancore gratuito. Credo che questo si spieghi con il clima politico generale del nostro tempo e non è cosa che riguarda solo il nostro Paese. Nell'epoca dei populismi occorrono risposte semplici che parlino direttamente alla pancia delle persone ed ecco che quindi tutto ciò che è complessità, ricerca, articolazione che comporta dei distinguo, delle sfumature, viene ritenuto vecchio, superato, fuori dal tempo. Pensate alla strisciante riforma della scuola. Si cerca da tempo di trasformare la scuola da luogo della cultura e della formazione del cittadino a luogo di mera introduzione nel mondo del lavoro. L'ambizione più o meno nascosta di privatizzare la scuola pubblica, la retorica sulle competenze e sulla meritocrazia, le prove Invalsi, l'alternanza scuola/lavoro, sono tutti tasselli di un progetto che tende a ridisegnare l'orizzonte costituzionale della scuola pubblica attribuendogli esclusivamente un ruolo di preparazione e di introduzione al mercato del lavoro, una prova generale della selezione spietata che il mercato del lavoro compirà dopo.

Good governance requires efficiency and effectiveness in public sector management, a sound legal framework, enhanced coordination, credibility, and transparency of the actions that support financial stability. Connecting these actions, there are significant interlinkages between government spending management and economic development. The research conducted within this paper is set to assess the overall relationships within general government spending management, with a keen focus on government support for environmental protection and good public governance at the European Union (EU) level. The study investigates the cumulative effects of good public governance dimensions on economic welfare and poverty lessening. The dataset covers the period 1995–2017, and the methodological credentials are based on the structural equation modelling technique. The main results indicate that not only does government expenditure (including environmental support) shape good public governance, but the...

Good governance promotes the fundamental grounds of participation and democracy in contemporary public administration, whilst institution building and the (in)effectiveness of public administration is linked to economic growth. This synergy brings forth sheer implications on the sustainable economic development. On this composite setting, the paper examines several fundamental credentials of public administration in the European Union (EU) countries, in relation to economic development, but also poverty, research, and development support, as representative socio-economic credentials. The empirical analysis is based on data covering the 1995–2017 lapse of time, processed through three econometric procedures, namely robust regression, structural equation modeling, and Gaussian graphical models. The main results emphasize that there are significant joint implications of public administration on the considered socio-economic dimensions. General government spending and, particularly, the...

Social protection aims to support the weak and underprivileged. It refers to a set of policies to help marginalized people maintain an adequate standard of living throughout their lives. There are many social protection programs in Nepal targeting vulnerable groups such as senior citizens, the disabled, women, the marginalized, and Dalits. There are numerous social protection programs in Nepal, including insurance, subsidies, and public works initiatives in addition to cash, in-kind, and food offerings. This paper reviews existing literature on such social security debates by systematically describing the key elements of coverage, benefits, and sustainability through the desk study method. It is a critical evaluation of the available research on Nepal's social protection schemes. This paper then concludes that, despite minimal governmental capacity, there are enough programs under operation. However, for optimum output, the Government of Nepal must also take into account the enh...

We estimate the effect of pension reforms on households' expectations of retirement outcomes and private wealth accumulation decisions exploiting a decade of intense Italian pension reforms as a source of exogenous variation in expected pension wealth. The Survey of Household Income and Wealth, a large random sample of the Italian population, elicits expectations of the age at which workers expect to retire and of the ratio of pension benefits to pre-retirement income between 1989 and 2002. We find that workers have revised expectations in the direction suggested by the reform and that there is substantial offset between private wealth and perceived pension wealth, particularly by workers that are better informed about their pension wealth.

The main aim of our empirical analysis is to quantify the social impact of fiscal policies on income redistribution throughout the EU Member States on a database of fiscal, social and economic factors. Our research is conducted by using the Gini coefficient as the indicator of income redistribution, as well as the dependent variable, and the following influencing variables: taxes, index of perception of corruption, tax burden, education level, human development index, private property protection, unemployment rate, GDP per capita, private and public expenditure. Hence, by employing both the 'Least squares' method and the 'Generalized Method of Moments' we have identified significant results which highlight important social and economic development discrepancies throughout the EU Member States, as well as different fiscal policies and legislative frameworks. Moreover, by testing the robustness of the variables, we have identified that taxes exert more negative effects according to the degree of their regressivity. Our results offer strong empirical evidence supporting the idea that beyond designing more balanced fiscal systems (by the use or weight of direct/indirect taxes), public authorities should target the reduction of income inequalities using other instruments and reforms beside the fiscal ones (education, rule of law, legislative systems quality).

The main aim of our empirical analysis is to quantify the social impact of fiscal policies on income redistribution throughout the EU Member States on a database of fiscal, social and economic factors. Our research is conducted by using the Gini coefficient as the indicator of income redistribution, as well as the dependent variable, and the following influencing variables: taxes, index of perception of corruption, tax burden, education level, human development index, private property protection, unemployment rate, GDP per capita, private and public expenditure. Hence, by employing both the ‘Least squares’ method and the ‘Generalized Method of Moments’ we have identified significant results which highlight important social and economic development discrepancies throughout the EU Member States, as well as different fiscal policies and legislative frameworks. Moreover, by testing the robustness of the variables, we have identified that taxes exert more negative effects according to th...

The standard approach to inequality measurement regards all inequalities as unfair. However, most people do not share this view, and believe that some inequalities are fair. This paper shows one way of generalizing the standard approach to take account of the distinction between fair and unfair inequalities. Within this framework, we introduce the unfairness Lorenz curve and the unfairness Gini, which are generalizations of the standard versions of the Lorenz curve and the Gini. With this more general framework in place, we study the implications of responsibility-sensitive theories of justice for the evaluation of the income distribution in Norway from 1986 to 2005. We find that the pre-tax income distribution has become unfairer in Norway, even though the standard Gini has decreased over the same period, and we show that an important explanation of this finding is the change in women's economic situation. Finally, we show that the post-tax income distribution also has become unfairer, partly due to the tax system in Norway contributing less to the elimination of unfair-

Tax relations of enterprises with a state take a significant place in their state and economic life, as it is evidenced by the appearance of tax accounting, which is fixed in legislation. The analysis of burden of taxation is rather a relevant issue for Ukraine's economy at the present stage of development because the rate of the burden of taxation is the main criterion of efficiency of the state's tax system, the formation of which is tried to be initiated in the project of Tax Code. Because of the insufficient level of the burden of taxation, the government budget receives fewer means, and that's why the government of the state won't be able to perform their functions effectively and completely. To provide the optimum level of the burden of taxation is one of the first-priority tasks of the tax system of each country. The purpose of the paper is to research the existing practice of taxation of activity of the enterprises of Ukraine, which allows analysing the tendencies of the level of burden of taxation according to the norms of tax law and developing proposals for its optimization. Methodology. The informational and methodological base of research is the statistical data of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, the official site of the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, laws and regulations concerning taxation in Ukraine, materials of scientific periodicals and the Internet resources. To achieve the purpose of the research, the following methods have been used: knowledge of formal and dialectic logic, systemic and structural analysis. Results. The tendencies of the burden of taxation in Ukraine have been analysed according to such directions: analysis of types of charged payments to the state budget of Ukraine, analysis of volumes of compensation on value-added tax, analysis of new taxes and fees for an individual, analysis of burden of taxation in Ukraine according to the international ratings. The conducted researches showed that strengthening of rating of our country in the world economic scope in general and in different spheres in particular (trade, financial, social and so on) is impossible without the formation of the strong internal basis for development, which tax system provides. Ukraine has the potential for improvement of institutional, administrative, and economic levers in this sphere. Along with this, it is necessary to avoid actions, which allow "artificially" increase the rating of the country without real improvement in this sphere, because it can influence image and reputation of the country negatively, arousing mistrust towards the system of state administration and regulation. Practical implications. The recommendations, offered by the authors, according to the results of the research, can be useful both for the developers of the economic policy and for the subjects of business activity for the purpose of optimization of the burden of taxation in the country. Value/originality. The originality of the research, which has been carried out by the authors, is in the justification of the factors that influence the level of burden of taxation of business in Ukraine and the development of proposals concerning its optimization for the purpose of simplification of the burden of taxation on businessmen of the country.

In spite of the importance of taxation for political and economic development, we know relatively little about the conditions under which citizens might not exact a political cost on leaders for adopting a particular tax. Drawing on insights from the literature on institutional design, this article examines how certain features of taxessuch as allowing for civil society oversight, sunset provisions that make the duration of taxes finite, and earmark mechanisms that direct tax revenue for a specific purposeaffect political support behind them. It also evaluates the role of three important aspects of the fiscal exchange, namely trust in government, perceptions of the public good, and level of income. Based on an original survey experiment focusing on the provision of public safety in Mexico, I find that these design features increase political support for taxation, especially among those with low trust in government, perceptions of high quality of the public good, and low income. These findings have important implications for Mexico, as well as a number of other countries that have both low levels of extraction and increased public spending imperatives.

In spite of the importance of taxation for political and economic development, we know relatively little about the conditions under which citizens might not exact a political cost on leaders for adopting a particular tax. Drawing on insights from the literature on institutional design, this article examines how certain features of taxessuch as allowing for civil society oversight, sunset provisions that make the duration of taxes finite, and earmark mechanisms that direct tax revenue for a specific purposeaffect political support behind them. It also evaluates the role of three important aspects of the fiscal exchange, namely trust in government, perceptions of the public good, and level of income. Based on an original survey experiment focusing on the provision of public safety in Mexico, I find that these design features increase political support for taxation, especially among those with low trust in government, perceptions of high quality of the public good, and low income. These findings have important implications for Mexico, as well as a number of other countries that have both low levels of extraction and increased public spending imperatives.

By assuming that marginalization threatens social trust formation, this study introduces a new analytical framework to explain the relationship between a welfare state's institutional design and trust levels in European societies. A good's life cycle view consisting of production and consumption is applied to the provision of social benefits to discern four forms of marginalization in an individual's experience with the welfare state: (a) marginalization through attitude, (b) marginalization through context, (c) marginalization through poverty, and (d) marginalization through opportunity lack. We argue that universalism in benefit provisions minimizes each of the four marginalization forms whereas selectivity is characterized by higher odds of marginalization. We further demonstrate that this especially holds true when universal social programs are generous and the state dedicates substantial resources to their funding. When the state's resources are scarce, selectivity becomes a good alternative to universalism and may enhance social trust formation among individuals. We tested our hypotheses using data from the European Social Survey (2010).

In this paper we examine government debt and tax-transfer policies that can improve the allocation of risk between generations. Markets cannot allocate risk efficiently between two generations whenever the two generations are not both alive prior to the occurrence of a stochastic event. This implies that government policies transferring risk between generations have the potential to create first-order welfare improvements. Our model provides a non-Keynesian justification for debt-finance of wars and recessions, as well as an added rationale for Social Security type tax-transfer schemes which aid unlucky generations, e.g., the Depression generation, at the expense of luckier generations.

We thank Campbell Harvey and Jim Wang for comments and suggestions, Michael Wu and Yan Yu for research assistance. Wei Li acknowledges the financial support from the Center for Business Education and Research at Duke University. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.