New book on investment incentives will help shape policies debates for years to come
Lifted from Middle Class Political Economist is the announcement related to Angry Bear Dr. Kenneth Thomas video series
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
New book on investment incentives will help shape policies debates for years to come
This past week I received my chapter author’s copy of a new book from Columbia University Press, Rethinking Investment Incentives: Trends and Policy Options. Based initially on the November 2013 conference on investment incentives at Columbia Law School, the contributors were put through their paces to upgrade their conference presentations into proper papers. The result is what Theodore Moran of Georgetown University calls in the Foreword “a who’s-who of experts across this broad span of topics.” He predicts, and I concur, that the work presented in this book will help drive policy discussions around the globe.
The book is divided into four parts. The first discusses theoretical debates on definitions and the effect of these incentives on (especially) foreign direct investment. The second section provides a global overview of the use of incentive incentives, both in major economies and in developing countries. Part III includes practical tools for ensuring program effectiveness as well as value for money. This includes a chapter on cost-benefit analysis, a methodology of which I am highly skeptical. As I have written before, if you end this analysis at the state (or city!) border, you miss many of the indirect job losses inflicted at competing companies by the addition of new subsidized competition. Indeed, according to economist Tim Bartik, very few subsidy programs have positive *national* effects, even if they have positive local effects that will be the only thing considered in the cost-benefit analysis.
Finally, the fourth part of the book considers ways to reduce the competitive use of investment incentives to attract investment. My chapter falls in this section, considering the control of subnational incentives in Australia, Canada, and the United States. (Spoiler: Most of the record is not pretty; Australia was an exception but the policy expired in 2011.) A variety of supranational regulatory efforts, including most notably that of the European Union, are considered in a chapter by Lise Johnson.
Have I teased you enough yet? This book is a must-have if you are interested in investment incentives and economic development; co-editors Ana Teresa Tavares-Lehmann (University of Porto, Portugal), Perrine Toledano, Lise Johnson, and Lisa Sachs (all of the Columbia Center for Sustainable Investment) are to be congratulated for the fine product.
HOW TO TAKE IT ALL BACK QUICKLY AND EASILY — ALMOST TOO EASILY
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How to raise US labor unions from the dead — tomorrow — practically and practicably:
In BALLOT INITIATIVE states, it typically takes only 5% of signatures of registered voters of the number who voted in the last governor’s election to put your initiative on the ballot. (OR, CA, MO, MI, OH, OK, CO, NE ND, SD, MT)
Check the numbers of who should line around the block to sign an initiative making union busting a felony:
— nationally, 45% bottom income share has dropped from 20% to 10% over two generations (while per capita income has doubled).
Does that mean the bottom 45% are back where they started in absolute terms: half of twice as much? Not across the board; incomes are on a slope. 20-25% are lower in absolute terms: which is why we have a $7.25/hr fed min wage — down from $11/hr (adjusted) in 1968.
Check the numbers who should line up around the block to sign for a higher state minimum wage:
— nationally, 45% of employees earn less than $15/hr.
We could conceivably get 5% of registered voters out there collecting signatures! :-O
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Some states like California put a winning initiative on the law books immediately. Most, allow the legislature one shot at approval. If it doesn’t approve the measure goes back to voters for final decision.
In California you write in plain language what you want your initiative to say and a state legal office will put it into proper words for a state law.
In California circulators (signature collectors) may be paid employees. This has led in recent years to initiatives becoming the play thing of billionaires — the opposite of the original intention.
If initiatives can quickly and easily take our world back, then, Fight for 15 and labor unions and others now have a new, all critical mission: register and sign up as many voters as possible.
Raising the issue of making union busting a felony to a high level of national consciousness should prompt legislatures in progressive states to finally wake up and face what they need to do — what we all need them to do. (WA, IL, MN, NY, MA, VT, CT, RI, PA, MD, VA, etc.)
http://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/ballot-measures/pdf/statewide-initiative-guide.pdf
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Just a random example — see how easy it could be.
Colorado Ballot Measure Moves to Ban Smartphones for Kids Under 13 By Angelica Cabral
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/06/20/colorado_ballot_measure_moves_to_ban_smartphones_for_kids_under_13.html