General Flashcards
What are the different instrument that can be used to curb a negative externality?
The main instruments are:
- Corrective taxation (Pigouvian)
- Cap and trade
Other possible instruments:
- Market power
- Command and control (regulation)
- Allocate property rights (Coasian bargaining)
What are the differences between consumer prices and wages in terms of bunching?
Consumer prices tend to bunch at prices that ends in 99 cents while wages to bunch at round numbers.
See Monopsony and Employer Mis-Optimization Account for Round Number Bunching in the Wage Disttibution by A. Manning, A. Dube and S. Naidu (WP, 2018)
What are the definitions of a kink and of a notch?
A notch is a discontinuity in the choice set, while a kink is a discontinuity in the slope of the choice set.
In the context of taxation, a notch is a discontinuity in the average tax rate while a kink is a discontinuity in the marginal tax rate.
In 2023, the Financial Times published an article titled «Why are Americans dying so young? ». What was the key figure about the likelihood of an American aged 5 to reach age 40?
1 American out of 25 aged 5 will not reach age 40.
Source: link
What share of the total individual personal financial wealth is detained in tax heavens?
8% of the total financial wealth in the world is located in a tax heaven.
Source : La richesse cachée des nations, Gabriel Zucman. Seconde édition (2017)
What is a bearer instrument? And what’s the problem with it?
Bearer instruments (“titre au porteur”) are financial assets for which the ownership is based on who owns the document.
It means that the ownership of these assets is anonymous and can thus participate to fiscal opacity and tax evasion.
What is the aggregate amount of individual tip income according the U.S tax administration in 2006 (including unreported tips)?
Annual tip income was estimated to be about 44 billion dollars in 2006 in the U.S.
Source: Treasury Inspector Tax Administration (2018)
Other studies have shown that the bulk of tips come from the food industry.
What interpretation of social norms was proposed by Kenneth Arrow?
Arrow suggested that social norms might be “reactions of society to compensate for market failures”, i.e.“agreements to improve the efficiency of the economic system” .
Source: Political and Economics Evaluation of Social Effects and Externalities 1971
Is the house where you live taxable under the French wealth tax (IFI)?
Yes but it benefits from a tax deduction of 30%.
What is the difference between competition à la Cournot and à la Bertrand?
Compétition à la Cournot is when firms compete on quantities.
Compétition à la Bertrand is when firms compete on prices.
In a Cournot duopol, the equilibrium is inefficient and firms make positive profit. In a Bertrand duopol, firms make zero profit at equilibrium, which is usually described as a paradox.
What are the three level of informality in the labor market identified by the literature?
- First margin: unregistered firms
- Second margin: unregistered workers in registered firms
- Third margin: registered workers in registered firms receiving part of their wages “under the table”
What is the exporting threshold?
The exporting threshold is a theoretical prediction that only firms with sufficient productivity (and possibly size) will export.
Which economist stated in the 90’s than «more than 100 million women were missing» ?
Amartya Sen.
In a 1990 article, he stated that «It is often said that women make up a majority of the world’s population. They do not. This mistaken belief is based on generalizing from the contemporary situation in Europe and North America, where the ratio of women to men is typically around 1.05 or 1.06, or higher. In South Asia, West Asia, and China, the ratio of women to men can be as low as 0.94, or even lower»
What is approximately the share of R&D spending as a share of GDP in the U.S?
R&D spending has recently passed the bar of 3% of GDP in the U.S. It has been on an increasing path.
Source: here
What does the median voter theorem predicts ? Under which assumptions?
The median voter theorem (MVT) is the most famous theory explaining how people vote and how parties select candidates.
It states that in a majority rule voting system, the candidate/party most preferred by the median voter will be elected. This result relies on the assumption that voter and candidates have single-peaked preferences, i.e. they can placed in a one-dimensional spectrum.
The political polarization observed in many democracies nowadays contradicts the theorem’s prediction,l. A growing literature has emphasized under which conditions, this theorem would not hold.
Example : here
