Ruud de Mooij, Michael Keen, Victoria Perry
Leaders of the advanced economies of the G7 recently made what they described as a “historic commitment” on taxation of multinational corporations (G7 2021).
The IGM Forum at Chicago Booth, which, for nearly a decade, has been regularly polling some of the world’s top economic experts in the US and Europe for their views on topical issues of public policy, invited its European and US panels to express their views on some of the issues surrounding the global deal on corporate taxes: the impact of a global minimum rate on investment, profit-shifting and low-tax jurisdictions (Acciari et al. 2021); whether a stable international tax system that includes a global minimum rate can be achieved (Laffitte et al. 2021); and a potential move from levying taxes based on where firms’ headquarters and production are located to where they make their sales.
Despite a stubbornly high unemployment rate of 6.1% in April representing 9.8 million people who say they are actively looking for work many employers are reporting that they can't find people to hire.
Last modified on Mon 15 Feb 2021 07.17 EST
The dilemmas are achingly familiar by now. Should we lock down or stay open? If we lock down, when and in what order should the different sectors of the economy open up? What about schools? Places of worship? Cultural and sporting venues?
In each case, the question being asked is essentially the same: is saving
x lives from Covid-19 worth
y potential damage to society? The question is usually framed in terms of damage to the economy rather than damage to society, because the former is easier to measure (how do you measure the damage done to religious people of not being able to pray together, to schoolchildren of not being able to mix, or to any of us of being deprived of art?) That calculation is complex enough, but feeding into it is another that’s even more morally fraught: are some human lives more valuable than others?
Romesh Vaitilingam 08 February 2021
The UK’s exit from the EU was finally completed on 1 January 2021. The IGM Forum at Chicago Booth invited its panels of leading European and US economists to express their views on the likely long-term effects of Brexit on both the UK economy and the aggregate economy of the remaining 27 EU members. As this column reports, a strong majority (86% of the panellists) agrees that the UK economy is likely to be at least several percentage points smaller in 2030 than it otherwise would have been. Views are more divided on the EU-27 economy: nearly a quarter of respondents agree that it will be at least several percentage points smaller in 2030 than it otherwise would have been; but more than a third are uncertain; while 41% do not expect the impact to be that strongly negative.