Before transparency: control and communication in Early-Modern Europe

Today, transparency is hailed as a key to good governance and economic efficiency, with national states implementing new laws to allow citizens access to information. It is therefore paradoxical that, as shown by a series of crises and scandals, modern governments and international agencies frequently have paid only lip-service to such ideals. Since Jeremy Bentham first introduced the concept of transparency into the language in 1789, few societal debates have sparked so much interest within the academic community, and across a variety of disciplines, using different approaches and methodologies. Within these current debates, however, one fact is striking: the lack of historical reflection about the development of the concept of transparency, both as a principle and as applied in practice, prior to its inception. Accordingly, the aim of this special issue is to contribute to historicising the ways in which communication and control over fiscal policy and state finances operated in early modern European polities.

Do investors care about corporate tax?

This paper conducts a comprehensive examination of the link between corporation tax payment and financial performance in the UK. We find no discernible link between tax rates and stock returns for the UK, no matter how tax payment is measured. This is true throughout the sample period and for both customer-facing and non-customer-facing companies. However, allowing for industry norms and a host of firm characteristics, companies with lower effective tax rates have significantly higher levels of stock market risk. Firms that are reported in the newspapers in a negative way in relation to their level of corporation tax payment experience small negative stock returns, which are partially reversed within a month. However, the initial negative effects and subsequent rebound are both more pronounced for smaller companies. News announcements of the potential involvement of a firm in a corporate inversion (expatriation) result in steeper and much longer-lasting falls in share prices, whereas news stories of a more general nature relating to a firm's tax avoidance or tax payments have little noticeable effect.

Simulating the impact on health of internalising the cost of carbon in food prices combined with a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages

Rising greenhouse gas emissions (GHGEs) have implications for health and up to 30 % of emissions globally are thought to arise from agriculture. Synergies exist between diets low in GHGEs and health however some foods have the opposite relationship, such as sugar production being a relatively low source of GHGEs. In order to address this and to further characterise a healthy sustainable diet, we model the effect on UK non-communicable disease mortality and GHGEs of internalising the social cost of carbon into the price of food alongside a 20 % tax on sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs). Developing previously published work, we simulate four tax scenarios: (A) a GHGEs tax of £2.86/tonne of CO2 equivalents (tCO2e)/100 g product on all products with emissions greater than the mean across all food groups (0.36 kgCO2e/100 g); (B) scenario A but with subsidies on foods with emissions lower than 0.36 kgCO2e/100 g such that the effect is revenue neutral; (C) scenario A but with a 20 % sales tax on SSBs; (D) scenario B but with a 20 % sales tax on SSBs. An almost ideal demand system is used to estimate price elasticities and a comparative risk assessment model is used to estimate changes to non-communicable disease mortality. We estimate that scenario A would lead to 300 deaths delayed or averted, 18,900 ktCO2e fewer GHGEs, and £3.0 billion tax revenue; scenario B, 90 deaths delayed or averted and 17,100 ktCO2e fewer GHGEs; scenario C, 1,200 deaths delayed or averted, 18,500 ktCO2e fewer GHGEs, and £3.4 billion revenue; and scenario D, 2,000 deaths delayed or averted and 16,500 ktCO2e fewer GHGEs. Deaths averted are mainly due to increased fibre and reduced fat consumption; a SSB tax reduces SSB and sugar consumption. Incorporating the social cost of carbon into the price of food has the potential to improve health, reduce GHGEs, and raise revenue. The simple addition of a tax on SSBs can mitigate negative health consequences arising from sugar being low in GHGEs. Further conflicts remain, including increased consumption of unhealthy foods such as cakes and nutrients such as salt.