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on South East Asia |
| By: | Adrianna Bella (Center for Indonesia’s Strategic Development Initiatives, Jakarta, Indonesi); Temesgen Kifle (School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia); Kam Ki Tang (School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia) |
| Abstract: | Literature has shown inconclusive evidence regarding the relationship between smoking and body weight. Utilising panel data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) 1993–2014, this study sets out to re-investigate this relationship in Indonesia—a country with the world’s highest male smoking rate. We estimate the impacts of current and former smoking behaviours on BMI by addressing the endogeneity issues using fixed effects instrumental variables (FEIV) and fixed effects (FE) methods, respectively. We find no causal contemporaneous impact of smoking and smoking intensity on male and female BMI, however, we find that quitting smoking has positive but small effects on male BMI, and the magnitude of the effect is positively related to the previous smoking intensity, the duration of smoking, and the duration since quitting. |
| Keywords: | smoking, body weight, BMI, Indonesia |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qld:uq2004:646&r= |
| By: | Yaya, OlaOluwa S; Adekoya, Oluwasegun B.; Babatunde, Oluwagbenga T. |
| Abstract: | The infant mortality rates in 45 Asian countries (1960-2018), obtained from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis database, are investigated using the I(d) framework, which allows for simultaneous estimation of the degree of persistence and nonlinearities in infant mortality rates as well as their growth rates. A high degree of persistence in the decreases of mortality rate is found with nonlinear evidence in the majority of the cases, confirming nonlinear dynamics of mortality rates. In the growth of mortality rates, we find ten countries (Armenia, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and UAE) with evidence of mean reversion. Health management in those listed countries needs to kick start interventions that improve the survival rates of infants. |
| Keywords: | Infant mortality rate; Death rate; Fractional persistence; Nonlinearity; Asia |
| JEL: | C22 C40 D60 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:109368&r= |
| By: | Yaya, OlaOluwa S; Adekoya, Oluwasegun B.; Babatunde, Oluwagbenga T. |
| Abstract: | The infant mortality rates in 45 Asian countries (1960-2018), obtained from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis database, are investigated using the I(d) framework, which allows for simultaneous estimation of the degree of persistence and nonlinearities in infant mortality rates as well as their growth rates. A high degree of persistence in the decreases of mortality rate is found with nonlinear evidence in the majority of the cases, confirming nonlinear dynamics of mortality rates. In the growth of mortality rates, we find ten countries (Armenia, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and UAE) with evidence of mean reversion. Health management in those listed countries needs to kick start interventions that improve the survival rates of infants. |
| Keywords: | Infant mortality rate; Death rate; Fractional persistence; Nonlinearity; Asia |
| JEL: | C22 C40 C60 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:109370&r= |
| By: | Yaya, OlaOluwa S; Vo, Xuan Vinh; Adekoya, Oluwasegun B. |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the possibility of middle-income convergence among seven members of Southeast Asian nations (Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam), with Malaysia being in upper-middle-income rank and other six countries in lower-middle-income rank. We apply unit root testing framework that allows for smooth nonlinearity, abrupt break, and cross-dependence in the income differences. Results show that these lower-middle-income countries are likely to converge among themselves, and also converge to the income level of Malaysia in the long run. Economic policies capable of stimulating long-run economic growth of these lower-middle-income countries is therefore recommended, and the countries should be ready to take up the challenge of upper-income country, like Malaysia. |
| Keywords: | Southeast Asia region; Cross-sectional dependency; Fourier function; Income convergence; Seemingly unrelated regression |
| JEL: | C19 C22 N17 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:109372&r= |
| By: | Tran, Lan T.; McCann, Laura M.; Skevas, Teo |
| Keywords: | Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Production Economics, Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea21:312886&r= |
| By: | Wolfgang Karl H\"ardle; Rainer Schulz; Taojun Sie |
| Abstract: | Excessive house price growth was at the heart of the financial crisis in 2007/08. Since then, many countries have added cooling measures to their regulatory frameworks. It has been found that these measures can indeed control price growth, but no one has examined whether this has adverse consequences for the housing wealth distribution. We examine this for Singapore, which started in 2009 to target price growth over ten rounds in total. We find that welfare from housing wealth in the last round might not be higher than before 2009. This depends on the deflator used to convert nominal into real prices. Irrespective of the deflator, we can reject that welfare increased monotonically over the different rounds. |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2108.11915&r= |
| By: | Mr. Ales Bulir; Mr. Juan S Corrales; Andres Gonzalez; Dyna Heng; Diego Rodriguez; Daniel Baksa |
| Abstract: | This technical note and manual (TNM) addresses the following issues: • Evaluating the full implications from the policies adopted to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy requires a well-developed macroeconomic framework. This note illustrates how such frameworks were used to analyze Colombia and Cambodia's shock impact at the beginning of the pandemic. • The use of macroeconomic frameworks is not to infer general policy conclusions from abstract models or empirical analysis but to help policymakers think through and articulate coherent forecasts, scenarios, and policy responses. • The two country cases illustrate how to construct a baseline scenario consistent with a COVID-19 shock within structural macroeconomic models. The scenario is built gradually to incorporate the available information, the pandemic's full effects, and the policy responses. • The results demonstrate the value of combining close attention to the data, near-term forecasting, and model-based analyses to support coherent policies. |
| Keywords: | TNM;potential GDP;fiscal policy variable;monetary policy rate;headline inflation;labor supply shock;modeling literature strand |
| Date: | 2021–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imftnm:2021/001&r= |
| By: | Mona Barake (EU Tax - EU Tax Observatory); Theresa Neef (EU Tax - EU Tax Observatory); Paul-Emmanuel Chouc (EU Tax - EU Tax Observatory); Gabriel Zucman (PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, EU Tax - EU Tax Observatory) |
| Abstract: | This study estimates how much tax revenue the European Union could collect by imposing a minimum tax on the profits of multinational companies. We compute the tax deficit of multinational firms, defined as the difference between what multinationals currently pay in taxes, and what they would pay if they were subject to a minimum tax rate in each country. We then consider three ways for EU countries to collect this tax deficit. First, we simulate an international agreement on a minimum tax of the type currently discussed by the OECD, favored by a number of European Union countries, and by the United States. In this scenario, each EU country would collect the tax deficit of its own multinationals. For instance, if the internationally agreed minimum tax rate is 25% and a German company has an effective tax rate of 10% on the profits it records in Singapore, then Germany would impose an additional tax of 15% on these profits to arrive at an effective rate of 25%. More generally, Germany would collect extra taxes so that its multinationals pay at least 25% in taxes on the profits they book in each country. Other nations would proceed similarly. We find that such a 25% minimum tax would increase corporate income tax revenues in the European Union by about €170 billion in 2021. This sum represents more than 50% of the amount of corporate tax revenue currently collected in the European Union and 12% of total EU health spending. The revenue potential of a coordinated minimum tax is thus large. However, revenues significantly depend on the commonly agreed minimum tax rate. With a 21% minimum rate, the European Union would collect about €100 billion in 2021. Moving from 21% to 15% would reduce the potential revenue by a factor of two to about €50 billion. Second, we simulate an incomplete international agreement in which only EU countries apply a minimum tax, while non-EU countries do not change their tax policies. In this scenario, each EU country would collect the tax deficit of its own multinationals (as in our first scenario), plus a portion of the tax deficit of multinationals incorporated outside of the European Union, based on the destination of sales. For instance, if a British company makes 20% of its sales in Germany, then Germany would collect 20% of the tax deficit of this company. We find that that in such a scenario, using a rate of 25% to compute the tax deficit of each multinational, the European Union would increase its corporate tax revenues about €200 billion. Out of this total, €170 billion would come from collecting the tax deficit of EU multinationals; an additional €30 billion would come from collecting a portion of the tax deficit of non-EU multinationals. For the European Union, there is thus a much higher revenue potential from increasing taxes on EU companies than from taxing non-EU companies. To improve the fairness of its tax system and generate new government revenues (e.g., to pay for the cost of Covid-19), it is essential that the European Union polices its own multinationals. Last, we estimate how much revenue each EU country could collect unilaterally, assuming all other countries keep their current tax policy unchanged. This corresponds to a "first-mover" scenario, in which one country alone decides to collect the tax deficit of multinational companies. This first mover would collect the full tax deficit of its own multinationals, plus a portion (proportional to the destination of sales) of the tax deficit of all foreign multinationals, based on a reference rate of 25%. We find that a first mover in the European Union would increase its corporate tax revenues by close to 70% relative to its current corporate tax collection. Although international coordination is always preferable, a unilateral move of a single EU member state (or a group of member states) would encourage other EU countries to also collect the tax deficit of multinationals—as not doing so would mean leaving tax revenues on the table for the first movers to grab. This could pave the way for an ambitious agreement on a high minimum tax, within the European Union and then globally. This analysis shows that unilateral action can play a transformative role and that refusing international coordination is not a sustainable solution, since other countries can always choose to collect the taxes that tax havens choose not to collect. Our estimates are based on a transparent methodology that combines newly available macroeconomic data on the location and effective tax rates of multinational profits. We illustrate and validate our approach by applying it to firm-level data publicly disclosed by all European banks and 16 large non-bank multinationals. We find that European banks would have to pay 41% more in taxes if they were subject to a 25% country-by-country minimum tax. This estimate is in line with our finding that EU multinationals as a whole (all sectors combined) would have to pay around 50% more in taxes, thus suggesting that this number is indeed the correct order of magnitude. Companies such as Shell, Iberdrola, and Allianz—who voluntarily disclose their country-by-country profits and taxes—would also have to pay 35%-50% more in taxes if they were subject to a 25% minimum tax. This report is supplemented by a pioneering interactive website, https://tax-deficitsimulator.herokuapp.com. This new tool allows policy makers, journalists, members of civil society, and all citizens in each EU country to assess the revenue potential from minimum taxation on both domestic and foreign firms. Users can select various scenarios (e.g., international coordination or unilateral action), and a full range of minimum tax rates from 10% to 50%. All the data and computer code are available online, making our estimates fully reproducible. We plan to regularly update our findings, as improved and more comprehensive macroeconomic data sources become available, refined estimation techniques are designed, and more companies publicly disclose their country-by-country reports. |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03323095&r= |