Flaws of self-regulation: trust some of the people, some of the time
Fewer dark corners for dirty money to hide in FT
That is from Tobias Buck at the FTThomas Piketty, the French economist, calculates that more than half of total wealth in Germany today is inherited — an estimate confirmed by German economists. In the 1960s and 1970s, the share was just a little over 20 per cent.
Crackdowns on tax avoidance, tax concessions to help fund budget ...
For The First Time, City-Dwellers Outnumber Rural Residents Globally. It’s A Profound Change
Libraries Are Messy, Flawed Human Places
If Stuart Kells wants to show that libraries are human places, he has also chosen stories that reveal their venal side. His librarians can be thieves, hoarders, or shameful caretakers. Even when they love books, they can’t be trusted with them. In its ideal form, a library protects books, celebrates them, and also makes them available to a wide group of readers. In this history, any single library rarely achieves all of these goals at once.
Resellers Who Use Bots To Buy Up Hot Tickets Could See Their Fines Soar
Those new service sector jobs
Via Samir Varma. Oh, wait, that is puppies, not dogs
The effect of corporate taxation on investment
This study estimates the investment, financing, and payout responses to variation in a firm’s effective corporate income tax rate in the United States. I exploit quasi-experimental variation created by the Domestic Production Activities Deduction, a corporate tax expenditure created in 2005. A 1 percentage point reduction in tax rates increases investment by 4.7 percent of installed capital, increases payouts by 0.3 percent of sales, and decreases debt by 5.3 percent of total assets. These estimates suggest that lower corporate tax rates and faster accelerated depreciation each stimulate a similar increase in investment, per dollar in lost revenue.
That is by Eric Ohrn, in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. And from Lu Wang at Bloomberg:
Opinion | Apple and the Fruits of Tax CutsAfter months of heated debate over whether companies would hand the biggest tax break in three decades back to shareholders or reinvest it in their businesses, there’s finally some hard data.Among the 130 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported results in this earnings season, capital spending increased by 39 percent, the fastest rate in seven years, data compiled by UBS AG show. Meanwhile, returns to shareholders are growing at a much slower pace, with net buybacks rising 16 percent. Dividends saw an 11 percent boost.
“The database is designed to help circular economy advocates learn what is already being done and better coordinate efforts on a global scale while showcasing more than 3,000 circular economy-related initiatives around the globe from more than 100 cities and 60 countries.
The Circular Economy Club (CEC), the nonprofit international network of more than 2,600 circular economy professionals and organizations in more than 60 countries, announces the launch of the largest open-source database on circular economy-related initiatives in the world. The database derived directly from the CEC’s efforts to “map” circular economy activities around the globe earlier this year. That project, dubbed “Circular Economy Mapping Week,” entailed workshops coordinated by CEC organizers in more than 65 cities and 40 countries from Feb. 5-11, 2018. The newly launched CEC database documents the findings of that outreach, which included more than 2,100 participants and 3,000 circular economy initiatives representing 100 cities and 60 countries. Anna Tarí, who founded the Circular Economy Club in 2014, believes this was the first global open source exercise of its kind in the circular economy sector, and was an important step for both the CEC and the circular economy movement in general. “If we aim to move towards a circular economy, we first need to understand what is already being done,” Tarí said. “It is imperative that circular economy advocates come together and clearly document what each of us knows. This database puts these abstract concepts into a tangible form that helps form a clearer picture.” Tarí said she was encouraged and inspired by the responses of the workshop organizers and attendees, who seem determined to keep momentum for the circular economy moving forward. The data also illuminated areas where coordination, communication and understanding can be improved, she said. “It can be a complicated concept to implement, and this data shows we have a lot of work to do” Tari said. “But the great news is that people want to get involved, have a role, and help define their future and that of our economies.” Those interested in adding their own circular economy information to the open-source database can do so at the CEC Web site.”