Clark Center Forum

 

 

This week's IGM European Economic Experts Panel Statement(s):

A) To the extent that public corporations pursue social and environmental initiatives, they tend to achieve higher risk-adjusted (private) returns than otherwise similar corporations that pursue such initiatives less.

B) To the extent that Norway’s global government pension fund makes investments for social and environmental objectives — apart from investments that would bring the highest expected risk-adjusted returns — it improves the welfare of Norwegians. 

This week's IGM Economic Experts Panel Statement:

Historical experience suggests that raising the top federal marginal tax on personal income to 70% (and holding the rest of the current tax code fixed) would raise substantially more revenue (federal and state, combined) without lowering economic activity. 

This week's IGM European Economic Experts Panel statements:

A) The fiscal rules of the European Union should give more flexibility to member countries.

B) The Italian budget for 2019 that the European Commission rejected in October would have increased Italy’s risk of fiscal insolvency substantially.

C) If France runs a 2019 budget deficit of around 3.4% of GDP, as announced by President Macron’s government, France’s risk of fiscal insolvency will increase substantially. 

This week's IGM Economic Experts Panel statement:

Rather than using second-round runoffs to settle elections in which no candidate wins a first-round majority, it would be better to use ranked-choice voting (as in the state of Maine) in which voters are encouraged to rank all of the candidates. 

This week's IGM European Experts Panel statements:

A) Capping the number of ride-sharing drivers as is being discussed in New York City, Chicago, and London will make the average resident in that city worse off.

B) To achieve a given level of congestion, it would be better to use taxes for driving that vary based on the level of congestion, rather than limiting the number of ride-sharing vehicles. 

This week's IGM Economic Experts Panel Statement:

The US spends roughly 17% of GDP on healthcare, according to the OECD; most European countries spend less than 12% of GDP.

Higher quality-adjusted US healthcare prices contribute relatively more to the extra US spending than does the combination of higher quantity and quality of US care (interpreting quantity and quality to reflect both greater American healthcare needs due to underlying population health and the delivery of more or better healthcare services to Americans). 

This week's IGM Economic Experts Panel statements:
A) Considering a broad range of costs and benefits is a better tool for guiding climate policy than setting temperature limits (such as 1.5 °C, eg) based on expected links between temperature increases and the extent of environmental harm.

B) Carbon taxes are a better way to implement climate policy than cap-and-trade. 

This week's European Economic Experts Panel statement:

People who migrated to Europe between 2015 and 2018 are likely — over the next two decades — to contribute more in taxes paid than they receive in benefits and public services.