Scottish Journal of Political Economy

Publisher:: Wiley
Publication date:: 2021-02-01

ISBN:: 0036-9292

Issue Number

No. 71-1, February 2024

Latest documents

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Income taxation and progressivity: A measure of equitability
This paper proposes a measure of ‘equitability of taxation’, in the context of progressivity and the income tax. By postulating specifications of ‘extreme equitability’ and ‘extreme inequitability’ of a tax system, the paper advances a measure of tax equitability as the normalised area distance of a ‘tax concentration curve’ from its most inequitable version. The measure is derived, and a procedure is outlined for the decomposition of differences in the measure across regimes into a ‘distribution effect’ and a ‘tax system’ effect. A criterion is established for asserting ‘unambiguously greater equitability’ in comparisons across regimes, in terms of a dominance relation akin to the Lorenz quasi‐ordering. The measure is illustrated with the help of numerical examples.
Judicial efficiency and economic growth: Evidence based on European Union data
We investigate the effects of judicial efficiency on economic growth using a new dataset over the period 2010–2018 drawn by the European Union Justice Scoreboard. To do so, we estimate a growth equation controlling for alternative de facto judicial efficiency indicators. Our findings suggest that operational inefficiencies of judicial systems undermine economic growth, weakening its capability to safeguard the enforcement of private contracts and the security of property rights. Our results are robust when we account for endogeneity and also provide significant policy implications.
The geopolitical risk spillovers across BRICS countries: A quantile frequency connectedness approach
This paper investigates the geopolitical risk spillovers among BRICS countries during the 1985–2022 period. We adopt the novel quantile frequency connectedness approach, which allows us to examine the risk transmission by frequency and quantile. The geopolitical risks spread more intensely among BRICS countries during extreme circumstances. The long‐term geopolitical risk spillovers are the main contributors to the overall spillovers. Additionally, we note that significant increases in spillovers are associated with remarkable political events. Russia is the most dominant country and the largest short‐term and long‐term geopolitical risk transmitter to other BRICS members during the research period.
The impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on high‐skilled and low‐skilled labor markets in a DSGE model
This research analyzes the unequal impact of COVID‐19 on high‐skilled and low‐skilled labor in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. The model is calibrated to fit Taiwan's economy and evaluates the effectiveness of various fiscal measures, including an increase in government spending, an increase in lump‐sum transfers, a disbursement of consumption vouchers, and an income tax cut, for combating the pandemic recession. Our results indicate that low‐skilled households tend to hoard labor more than high‐skilled households during economic downturns. An income tax cut outperforms other fiscal instruments in generating the highest aggregate welfare and in advancing output, employment, and consumption.
Capital misallocation in Chinese industrial firms
This paper investigates the impact of volatility in profitability shock, capital price distortion and adjustment costs on capital misallocation among Chinese industrial firms. We estimate a dynamic model pertaining firms' investment decision, incorporating institutional differences between state and private firms, so the model can reproduce salient features observed from Chinese firms. Our analysis shows: (i) capital price distortion is more severe among state firms than private ones; (ii) adjusting capital is more costly for state than private firms; (iii) volatility in profitability shock is a major source that causes capital misallocation for both types of firms.
A tale of two taxes: State‐dependency of tax policy
In this paper, we build a simple endogenous growth model with labour and corporate taxes to investigate the asymmetric effects of tax policy over the growth trajectory. We employ a newly developed panel smooth transition model to empirically analyse a sample of 19 advanced economies over the 1961–2017 period. We find that both the asymmetric effects and the tax measures used are essential. We also find that the effects of corporate and personal taxes on long‐run growth are non‐linear, while the detrimental effects of personal taxes are empirically larger compared to those of corporate taxes once non‐linearities are controlled for.
Shadow rates as a measure of the monetary policy stance: Some international evidence
This paper examines the usefulness of shadow rates to measure the monetary policy stance by comparing them to the official policy rates and those implied by three types of Taylor rules in both inflation‐targeting countries (the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and others that have only targeted inflation at times (the United States, Japan, the Euro Area and Switzerland) over the period from the early 1990s to December 2021. Shadow rates estimated from a dynamic factor model are shown to suggest a much looser policy stance than either the official policy rates or those implied by the Taylor rules, and generally to provide a more accurate picture of the monetary policy stance during both ZLB and non‐ZLB periods, since they reflect the full range of unconventional policy measures used by central banks. Furthermore, generalised impulse response analysis based on three alternative vector autoregression (VAR) models indicates that monetary shocks based on the shadow rates are more informative than those related to the official policy rates or to two‐ and three‐factor shadow rates, especially during the Global Financial Crisis and the recent COVID‐19 pandemic, when unconventional measures have been adopted. Finally, unconventional policy shocks seem to have less persistent effects on the economy in countries, which have adopted an inflation‐targeting regime.
The role of liquidity in monetary policy transmission: Evidence from Indian banks1
The role of bank liquidity in monetary policy transmission has received insufficient attention in the literature. Faced with monetary tightening, banks with more liquidity can sell off securities and protect their loan portfolios. We test this proposition using panel data for Indian banks during 2005–2020. Employing dynamic threshold panel regressions with liquid assets as the threshold variable, we show that bank lending declines with monetary policy tightening in low liquidity regimes, but not in high liquidity regimes. We also find evidence for different portfolio reallocation behaviour by banks in high versus low liquidity regimes in response to monetary policy changes.
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