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IREF - Dec 28, 2011

Tax Structure and Entrepreneurship

Mina Baliamoune-Lutz and Pierre Garello

The current crisis includes two components: high indebtedness and low growth. No easy solution is in sight, since policy-makers are currently facing a double bind, since they need extra cash from the taxpayers and also lighter taxation in order to encourage entrepreneurship, the key ingredient in economic growth.
 



  

  

    



  	

        IREF - Dec 21, 2011
      

    

      
A few recommendations to Spain’s new leader

      
by Angel Martin Oro

  
  

  

	
A few recommendations to Spain’s new leader
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“What would you (try to) do to save your country from economic collapse?” This is indeed a difficult and tricky question, and one that is normally answered along the lines of interventionist economic thinking. The fatal conceit that Hayek wrote about is embedded in this same question: it assumes that the leader of the State will be able to take the appropriate actions to lead the economy (a very complex social order) to whatever goals.

 

	    

      

    		

	

	  


    


  



  

  

    



  	

        IREF - Dec 19, 2011
      

    

      
Individual Rights and the Fight Against “Tax Evasion”

      
By Pierre Bessard, Liberales Institut

  
  

  

	
Individual Rights and the Fight Against “Tax Evasion”
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The emergence of a global government cartel without any restrictions to tax and spend their citizens' wealth would lead to a world that is less free and less prosperous.  The financial and economic crisis that unfolded from 2008 has led many governments to intensify their efforts against what has been dubbed “tax evasion”, i.e., the protection of wealth or capital outside a citizen's or a firm's home country.

	    

      

    		

	

	  


    


  



  

  

    



  	

        IREF - Dec 05, 2011
      

    

      
French unions live the good life. For how long?

      
by Vesselina Spassova, PhD

  
  

  

	
French unions live the good life. For how long?
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France is famous for its wine, cheese and…unions. It is well established now that any reform considered by any government, left or right, has to be approved by unions (or, at least, not strongly opposed) in order to have a chance to be passed. Strange situation in a country where less than 8% of all employees have a union membership card--the lowest rate in the EU. Despite the poor legitimacy that such a low membership rate implies, unions are getting important grants and allowances from the state as well as from businesses.

	    

      

    		

	

	  


    


  



  

  

    



  	

        IREF - Dec 05, 2011
      

    

      
ECB and quantitative easing

      

  
  

  

	    
Will the European Central Bank turn to Quantitative Easing ? This is the question haunting all analysts and governments and, if one were to make a bet, better put it on the YES answer. Yes, the ECB will most probably end up doing just what the FED has been doing for years. The main reasons put forward in support of that policy is that there is no much choice: no one wants to lend to EU states and EU banks any more, not even the Chinese government, and the German economy doesn't have the power to support everyone.