Land taxes in a Latin American context

Since Henry George (1839-1897) economists have been arguing that a tax on unimproved land is an ideal tax on efficiency grounds. Output taxes, on the other hand, have distortionary effects on the economy. This paper shows that under asymmetric information output taxes might be used along with land tax in order to implement an optimal taxation scheme in a Latin American context, i.e., where land rental markets are relatively thin, land property provides non-agricultural payoffs and there is nonrevenue objectives of land taxation. Also, the model has two implications that can be tested empirically: (i) there is evasion when schemes based only on land taxes are implemented; (ii) this evasion is more severe for large landholders.

Should educational policies be regressive?

In this paper, we show that when the government is able to transfer wealth between generations, regressive policies are no longer optimal. The optimal educational policy can be decentralized through appropriate Pigouvian taxes and credit provision, is not regressive, and provides equality of opportunities in education (in the sense of irrelevance of parental income for the amount of education). Moreover, in the presence of default, the optimal policy can be implemented through income-contingent payments.

Previdência complementar no Brasil : análise do impacto da legislação na alocação de ativos entre 2003 e 2005

This work aims to identify the impacts brought about by legislation alterations regarding assets allocation by Pension Funds Companies. Focused on that, this work carried on a detailed review on the existing literature concerning Modern Portfolio Theory, Pension Funds Investment Strategies and on Brazilian Legislation for Financial Market and Pension Funds. On a second moment, the work identified asset allocation differences when comparing national financial market players and the data released by the official Social Security Secretary - SPC - regarding the 35 Pension Funds analyzed. In accordance with what the literature indicates, the work also reveals that Pension Funds pursue asset allocation policies different than those adopted by other market players due to the Fund¿s long term investment characteristics. No major impacts were identified on the legislation issued by the National Monetary Council ¿ CMN - in what it concerns asset allocation and impacts were only identified on the legislation regarding - CPMF - taxes on financial operations - which led Pension Funds to allocate expressive part of their assets on investment funds.

Previdência complementar no Brasil : análise do impacto da legislação na alocação de ativos entre 2003 e 2005

This work aims to identify the impacts brought about by legislation alterations regarding assets allocation by Pension Funds Companies. Focused on that, this work carried on a detailed review on the existing literature concerning Modern Portfolio Theory, Pension Funds Investment Strategies and on Brazilian Legislation for Financial Market and Pension Funds. On a second moment, the work identified asset allocation differences when comparing national financial market players and the data released by the official Social Security Secretary ¿ SPC ¿ regarding the 35 Pension Funds analyzed. In accordance with what the literature indicates, the work also reveals that Pension Funds pursue asset allocation policies different than those adopted by other market players due to the Fund¿s long term investment characteristics. No major impacts were identified on the legislation issued by the National Monetary Council ¿ CMN - in what it concerns asset allocation and impacts were only identified on the legislation regarding ¿CPMF¿ ¿ taxes on financial operations ¿ which led Pension Funds to allocate expressive part of their assets on investment funds

Tratamento tributário do livro eletrônico e do leitor de livro eletrônico

Este trabalho trata da aplicabilidade, ao livro eletrônico e ao leitor de livro eletrônico, da imunidade tributária dos livros, jornais, periódicos e o papel destinado à sua impressão, veiculada no artigo 150, VI, “d”, Constituição Federal. A doutrina brasileira e a jurisprudência do Supremo Tribunal Federal entendem que o objetivo da imunidade tributária do livro é garantir a liberdade de expressão e a difusão cultural por meio da vedação à instituição de impostos sobre os livros, jornais, periódicos e o papel destinado à sua impressão. Entretanto, apesar de a doutrina empregar interpretação ampliativa dos ditames da mencionada imunidade, o Supremo Tribunal Federal, atualmente, possui uma postura restritiva, entendimento consolidado com a edição da Súmula 657. Sustenta-se no presente trabalho que tanto a doutrina como a jurisprudência do Supremo Tribunal Federal confundem os conceitos de livro com aquele relacionado ao seu suporte, por partirem de premissa equivocada, isto é, da indissociabilidade do E-Book do seu suporte físico.

O BNDES gera lucro econômico? : utilização da metodologia do EVA® para verificar a criação de valor ao acionista

O objetivo deste trabalho foi verificar se o BNDES, no período entre 2000 e 2011 gerou lucro econômico para o seu principal acionista, o Governo Federal. Foram analisados demonstrativos financeiros e notas explicativas publicadas neste período para obtenção de dados para o cálculo do Valor Econômico Adicionado ou Economic Value added (EVA®). Esta metodologia deduz o custo de todo o capital empregado na empresa do lucro operacional após os impostos. Além disso, utiliza o custo médio ponderado de capital (CMPC) ou Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) como taxa de remuneração do capital investido para cálculo do custo do capital. O WACC pondera o custo de capital de terceiros, após a dedução da alíquota dos impostos incidentes sobre o lucro e o custo de capital próprio. A utilização de algumas premissas e a elaboração de alguns cenários foram necessários para a estimativa do custo do capital próprio do acionista. Além disso, alguns ajustes, como a inclusão de dividendos e juros sobre capital próprio pagos pelo BNDES ao acionista foram realizados para o cálculo do EVA®, além de outros ajustes contábeis necessários. Ao final do estudo, observamos que, em todos os cenários utilizados, a geração de lucro econômico foi negativa.

Tax reform under fiscal stress: a CGE analysis of the Brazilian tax reform

In spite of a general agreement over the distortion imposed by the current Brazilian tax system, attempts to reform it during the last decade have faced several restrictions to its implementation. Two of these restrictions were particular binding: a) fiscal adjustment restriction (public sector debt cannot increase), b) fiscal federalist restriction (revenues from individual states and municipalities cannot decrease). This paper focuses on a specific reform that overcomes in principle the fiscal federalist restriction. Using Auerbach and Kotlikoff (1987) model calibrated for the Brazilian economy, I analyze the short and long run macroeconomic effects of this reform subject to the fiscal adjustment restriction. Finally, I look at the redistributive effects of this reform among generations as a way to infer about public opinion’s reaction to the reform. The reform consists basically of replacing indirect taxes on corporate revenues, which I show to be equivalent to a symmetric tax on labor and capital income, by a new federal VAT. The reform presented positive macroeconomic effects both in the short and long run. Despite a substantial increase in the average VAT rate in the first years after the reform, a majority of cohorts experienced an increase in their lifetime welfare, being potentially in favour of the reform.

Three applications of the marginal cost of public funds concept

This paper illustrates the use of the marginal cost of public funds concept in three contexts. First, we extend Parry’s (2003) analysis of the efficiency effects excise taxes in the U.K., primarily by incorporating the distortion caused by imperfect competition in the cigarette market and distinguishing between the MCFs for per unit and ad valorem taxes on cigarettes. Our computations show, contrary to the standard result in the literature, that the per unit tax on cigarettes has a slightly lower MCF than the ad valorem tax on cigarettes. Second, we calculate the MCF for a payroll tax in a labour market with involuntary unemployment, using the Shapiro and Stiglitz (1984) efficiency wage model as our framework. Our computations, based on Canadian labour market data, indicate that incorporating the distortion caused by involuntary unemployment raises the MCF by 25 to 50 percent. Third, we derive expressions for the distributionally-weighted MCFs for the exemption level and the marginal tax rate for a “flat tax”, such as the one that has been adopted by the province of Alberta. This allows us to develop a restricted, but tractable, version of the optimal income tax problem. Computations indicate that the optimal marginal tax rate may be quite high, even with relatively modest pro-poor distributional preferences.

Hedge accounting com derivativos exóticos e tributação

Esta pesquisa analisou a aplicação da metodologia de hedge accounting na contabilização de derivativos financeiros em conjunto com a operação objeto de proteção. Foi demonstrado o cálculo do valor justo por marcação a mercado, o teste de efetividade do hedge, a documentação e classificação contábil nos modelos de hedge de valor justo e hedge de fluxo de caixa. Foi verificado ainda o impacto da tributação na efetividade da operação de hedge.

Impactos da política fiscal e tributária no crescimento econômico

Utilizando uma adaptação do modelo de Telles e Mussolini (2014), o presente trabalho busca discutir as caracterizações da matriz tributária, discutindo como as variações na matriz tributária podem impactar na política fiscal. Discute-se com base na diferenciação dos impostos em cinco grupos, a saber: impostos sobre salários, impostos sobre investimentos, impostos sobre consumo, impostos sobre renda e riqueza, e impostos sobre comércio internacional, a partir dos quais argumenta-se quais seus impactos para a política fiscal, para a interação das variáveis econômicas e a evolução destas variáveis, assim como a relação entre a preferência por uma determinada estrutura tributária e o endividamento de um país. Após a discussão teórica, faz-se uma análise descritiva da evolução destas variáveis tributárias para cada categoria de tributo, relacionando a sua evolução no tempo para um grupo de 64 países, tomados a partir do trabalho de Telles e Mussolini (2014), assim como relacionando a sua evolução intertemporal. Por fim, faz-se uma análise da estrutura tributária destes países, discutindo, na análise dos dados em painel, os resultados para as estimativas em modelos de efeitos fixos e efeitos aleatórios, os resultados da estimação pelo modelo Arellano-Bond, e utilizando-se a abordagem instrumental pelo Método Generalizado dos Momentos, onde se conclui que a taxação sobre a riqueza e a taxação sobre o comércio internacional com fins de financiar o excesso de gastos do governo impacta de forma negativa na trajetória de crescimento, entre outros resultados.

The effects of longevity and distortions on education and retirement

This article studies the impact of longevity and taxation on life-cycle decisions and long-run income. Individuals allocate optimally their total lifetime between education, working and retirement. They also decide at each moment how much to save or consume out of their income, and after entering the labor market how to divide their time between labor and leisure. The model incorporates experience-earnings profiles and the return-to-education function that follows evidence from the labor literature. In this setup, increases in longevity raises the investment in education - time in school - and retirement. The model is calibrated to the U.S. and is able to reproduce observed schooling levels and the increase in retirement, as the evidence shows. Simulations show that a country equal to the U.S. but with 20% smaller longevity will be 25% poorer. In this economy, labor taxes have a strong impact on the per capita income, as it decreases labor effort, time at school and retirement age, in addition to the general equilibrium impact on physical capital. We conclude that life-cycle effects are relevant in analyzing the aggregate outcome of taxation.

Two essays on education and governament policies

Whether human capital increases or decreases wage uncertainty is an open ques- tion from an empirical standpoint. Yet, most policy prescriptions regarding human capital formation are based on models that impose riskiness on this type of invest- ment. We slightly deviate from the rest of the literature by allowing for non-linear income taxes in a two period model. This enables us to derive prescriptions that are robust to the risk characteristics of human capital: savings should be discouraged, human capital investments encouraged and both types of investment driven to an e¢ cient level from an aggregate perspective. These prescriptions are also robust to what choices are observed, even though the policy instruments used to implement them are not.

Unemployment insurance an analysis of optimal mechanisms under aggregate shocks

The purpose of this work is to provide a brief overview of the literature on the optimal design of unemployment insurance systems by analyzing some of the most influential articles published over the last three decades on the subject and extend the main results to a multiple aggregate shocks environment. The properties of optimal contracts are discussed in light of the key assumptions commonly made in theoretical publications on the area. Moreover, the implications of relaxing each of these hypothesis is reckoned as well. The analysis of models of only one unemployment spell starts from the seminal work of Shavell and Weiss (1979). In a simple and common setting, unemployment benefits policies, wage taxes and search effort assignments are covered. Further, the idea that the UI distortion of the relative price of leisure and consumption is the only explanation for the marginal incentives to search for a job is discussed, putting into question the reduction in labor supply caused by social insurance, usually interpreted as solely an evidence of a dynamic moral hazard caused by a substitution effect. In addition, the paper presents one characterization of optimal unemployment insurance contracts in environments in which workers experience multiple unemployment spells. Finally, an extension to multiple aggregate shocks environment is considered. The paper ends with a numerical analysis of the implications of i.i.d. shocks to the optimal unemployment insurance mechanism.

The effect of options on coordination

This paper studies how constraints on the timing of actions affect equilibrium in intertemporal coordination problems. The model exhibits a unique symmetric equilibrium in cut-o¤ strategies. The risk-dominant action of the underlying one-shot game is selected when the option to delay effort is commensurate with the option to wait longer for others' actions. The possibility of waiting longer for the actions of others enhances coordination, but the option of delaying one s actions can induce severe coordination failures: if agents are very patient, they might get arbitrarily low expected payoffs even in cases where coordination would yield arbitrarily large returns.