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This chapter analyses the recovery of the Danish economy from the crisis of the 1980s, its elevation to a bit of an ‘economic miracle’ or at least an ‘employment miracle’ from 1995 to 2005 and its subsequent decline during the financial crisis, which revealed more long-standing problems that precluded a quick recovery. The solution of Denmark's structural balance of payment problems in the early 1990s paved the way for long-term prosperity, and Denmark managed the challenges of globalisation and deindustrialisation almost without social costs. However, an accumulation of short-term policy failures and credit liberalisation facilitated a credit and housing bubble, a consumption-driven boom and declining competitiveness. In broad terms, the explanation is political; this includes not only vote- and office-seeking strategies of the incumbent government but also ideational factors such as agenda setting of economic policy. Somewhat unnoticed – partly because of preoccupation with long-term challenges of ageing and shortage of labour – productivity and economic growth rates had slowed down over several years. The Danish decline in GDP 2008–2009 was larger than in the 1930s, and after the bubble burst, there were few drivers of economic growth. Households consolidated and were reluctant to consume; public consumption had to be cut as well; exports increased rather slowly; and in this climate, there was little room for private investments. Financially, the Danish economy remained healthy, though. Current accounts revealed record-high surpluses after the financial crisis; state debt remained moderate, and if one were to include the enormous retained taxes in private pension funds, net state debt would de facto be positive. Still, around 2010–2011 there were few short-term drivers of economic growth, and rather unexpectedly, it turned out that unemployment problems were likely to prevail for several years.

The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively examine Ghana’s tax reform programme and investigate whether it has facilitated the revenue mobilization capacity of the overall tax system and of individual taxes on the basis of estimates of tax buoyancies and elasticities.

This study uses the proportional adjustment approach to estimate tax buoyancies and elasticities of the overall tax system and of individual taxes for the pre and post tax reform period over the 1970-2013 period.

The results show that in general, tax reforms had a positive influence on the overall tax structure and on the individual tax handles as evidenced in the more than unity buoyancy and elasticity. All the individual taxes, except excise duties, recorded buoyancies and elasticities of more than unity during the reform period.

Tax authorities ought to move away from income-based taxation which discriminates against saving and investment, in favour of consumption-based taxes in conformity with international standards. Emphasis must also be placed on those taxes that have high revenue elasticities. These taxes include the personal, corporate, the Value Added Tax, and the import duties.

In this study, the paper extends and disaggregates the data on taxes, account for discretionary tax changes from the historical time series data, and use the adjusted historical time series data to estimate tax elasticity. The study therefore provides an in-depth understanding of the effects of the tax reforms on the overall tax system and of individual taxes in Ghana.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of tax reform on entrepreneurship in South Africa using repeated cross-sectional data from the World Bank.

The paper adopts a difference-in-difference estimation technique as well as contrasting periods before and after the tax reform. This contrast is achieved by examining individuals in the formal and informal sector and measuring the effectiveness of the reform on self-employment.

The results indicate that the tax reform had a positive and significant effect on the probability of becoming self-employed in South Africa and is robust across different econometric specifications.

The authors use individual-level data to measure the effectiveness of a tax reform policy on entrepreneurship. Utilizing the South African post-Apartheid tax reform as a natural experiment allows the authors to identify the effects of taxes on the choice of becoming self-employed.

Small businesses file taxes in accordance with the personal income tax code because they are considered flow-through entities. Thus, personal income tax reforms directly affect the incentives small business owners face regarding employment and operations. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors use the changes in personal income tax rates during the 1993 and 2001-2003 reforms and micro-level data to estimate the effect of statutory tax rate changes on small business employment decisions.

The authors add two contributions to the current literature: first, the author allow for intertemporal tax planning and second, the author allow the firm’s decision to employ labor to be correlated with the firm’s wage bill decision. Estimation of a Heckman selection model for wage bills shows that the probability that a business will employ labor is 1.18 percent higher when current tax rates increase by one percentage point and 0.70 percent lower when future rates are expected to increase by one percentage point. Among firms that already employ labor, the median wage bill elasticity with respect to current tax rates is −0.64. These estimates are larger than those reported in previous research because my model includes future taxes and allows for correlation between the firm’s employment and wage bill decisions. Omitting the intertemporal tax responses biases the estimates of previous researchers upwards, whereas assuming the two firm decisions are independent biases estimates towards zero.

This paper has been cited in publications published in Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy.

The Lagos State land use charge (LUC) 2001 represents a radical and wholesome restructuring of the entire erstwhile land‐based tax system in the state, and the first of its kind in Nigeria. The purpose of this paper is to examine how this maiden holistic intervention in property tax administration in Nigeria has fared in its first nine years.

Primary data were garnered from stakeholders through personal interviews and structured questionnaires, while secondary data include information from the enabling act and other‐related materials.

It was noted that the intervention failed to conform to best practice both in policy and administration. As a result, the reform has not ceased to generate controversies, has enjoyed limited acceptability, and achieved limited success.

Taking a cue from the experiences of countries that have demonstrated best practices in property tax reform, the paper proffers suggestions, covering both policy (e.g. extensive stakeholders' consultation) and administration (e.g. improved links between tax payment and provision of local services) that would help to sustain the reform intervention and make it sufficiently worthwhile.

Norway is a small nation state on the northernmost coastline of Western Europe, integrated in the Western world economy. For centuries Norway's integration in the world economy had been based on exports of raw materials such as fish and timber, as well as shipping services. In the early 20th century, furnace-based metals (made possible by cheap hydropower) were added to this export basket. Just as the world economy entered an increasingly unstable phase in 1970s, another natural resource was discovered in Norway: petroleum – that is, oil and natural gas from the North Sea. This chapter analyses the challenges and possibilities inherent in the Norwegian strategy of developing an oil economy in a world economic situation influenced by new and stronger forms of international integration through the four decades between 1970 and 2010.

This paper aims to investigate the potential role of property taxes as a revenue source for local government in Tanzania. Often this tax is beset with political and administrative problems that affect its operational efficiencies.

The research is the result of extensive fieldwork undertaken in Tanzania during 2002 to investigate and evaluate the valuations done for purposes of the property tax in Dar es Salaam and eight regional towns.

Urban local government revenues, and in particular those classified as own revenues in Tanzania and other East African countries, are generally not sufficient enough to develop and supply adequate urban services to the region's fast growing urban population. The main findings of the paper highlight the difficulties faced by municipalities in developing and maintaining a property tax system.

The key problems were lack of experienced staff, limited equipment and significant political interference.

This research clearly identified the need for developing countries to recognize the importance of creating sustainable tax sources that are easily managed at low costs. The work found that the property tax system as designed for Tanzania was not sustainable and suggests a range of possible improvements.

The research did indicate that significant results could be achieved through implementing improvements in developing a simplified valuation basis and through greater collection efficiency. The research should be of particular interest to policy and decision makers within other developing countries who are embarked on a process of property tax reform.

The global financial crisis has led to increased attention on the relationship of household indebtedness and systemic risks. As a result, macroprudential measures aimed at reducing the risks have been introduced in many countries. The purpose of this paper is to review the recent empirical literature on the measures targeted at households in the housing markets.

This note reviews and discusses the recent empirical literature on macroprudential measures targeted at households in the housing market as well as housing-related tax policy measures.

To date, the literature mostly consists of cross-country studies using aggregate data and looking at a large set of different measures. The studies typically report associations between the measures and the outcome variables of interest (often credit growth and house price appreciation), but do not assess the causal effects of the different measures or the underlying mechanisms.

Exploiting household data together with policy reforms should be a useful step forward in understanding the effects of the measures and uncovering the mechanisms through which they operate. This would also allow studying the distributional effects of the measures. Understanding the distributional effects is important in its own right, but it is also required because the ultimate goals of the macroprudential policies are related not only to the aggregate level of credit but also to the distribution of leverage.

This study first calculates a profit rate for China’s economy over the period 1952–2014; the rate shows a downward trend in the long term but also exhibits cyclical fluctuations. Then, structural vector autoregressive models are used to examine the Chinese economic structure and, thanks to impulse response functions, the role of the profit rate in investment, capital accumulation, and GDP growth rates. Then, based on a priori constraints relative to this structure, the study tests whether these assumptions are verified over the period studied in the context of the transformations of China. The impulse response functions are further examined by using Bayesian analysis. Finally, the authors conclude that the period from 1952 to 2014 should be divided into several sub-periods with distinct structural characteristics.

This study seeks to contrive a sustainable valuation model for developing countries: a model that reasonably combines simplicity with equity, cost effectiveness, transparency, and the peculiarities of the local market place for improved revenue yields.

The study draws from theory, experiences of other nations and international best practices to arrive at what should be the most appropriate tax base, valuation basis, valuation method, and the most expedient valuation approach for developing countries.

Using Lagos State, Nigeria to demonstrate the application of the contrived conceptual framework, the study, among others, recommended for her urban areas, a combination of modified mass appraisal technique, modified UK's “property banding” technique, and discrete valuation to reflect the diverse distribution of her property stock. Others include a ten‐yearly comprehensive revaluation and indexation for the annual or periodic adjustments during the intervening periods.

Property tax remains, among known local taxes today, the most viable, stable, predictable, progressive, and veritable source of own revenue for a truly independent local government administration. However, while developed countries have been able to tap these potentials to a good advantage for both fiscal and non‐fiscal goals; it is regrettable that the experience of most developing countries has not been equally satisfactory. Inappropriate valuation process, among others, remains a component of the tax system that is misguided and surrounded with much misgiving; hence a revisit.

Given the peculiar characteristics of the property valuation environment of developing countries, the highly simplified but pragmatic valuation model proposed is expected to birth a sustainable property tax system anchored on equity, cost effectiveness, ease of administration, and enhanced valuation ratio, with potentials for improved compliance and tax revenue yields.