Taxing the Informal Economy: The Current State of Knowledge and Agendas for Future Research

Abstract

This paper reviews the literature on taxation of the informal economy, taking stock of key debates and drawing attention to recent innovations. Conventionally, the debate on whether to tax has frequently focused on the limited revenue potential, high cost of collection, and potentially adverse impact on small firms. Recent arguments have increasingly emphasised the more indirect benefits of informal taxation in relation to economic growth, broader tax compliance, and governance. More research is needed, we argue, into the relevant costs and benefits for all, including quasi-voluntary compliance, political and administrative incentives for reform, and citizen-state bargaining over taxation.     

The Production of Social Science Knowledge beyond Occidentalism: the quest for a post-exotic anthropology

This article makes the case for a post-exotic anthropology as an alternative disciplinary practice adapted to the emerging historical conjuncture that is reconfiguring the political and epistemic relations between different parts of the world. This is raising anew a legitimation challenge to mainstream social sciences but especially academic anthropology, as its a practice is still characterised by a chronic exoticist inflection thanks to its allegiance to the epistemology of Occidentalism. The article calls for a revision of anthropology's geo-theoretical premises in light of an emergent post-exotic historical conjuncture, which entails the abandonment of the duopoly exercised by the epistemic regimes of postmodernism and postcolonialism, in favour of a post-exotic standpoint. It suggests the adoption of mesography as the optimum means of operationalising a post-exotic anthropology as well as an alternative mode of social science knowledge production. Finally, it proposes an ethic of reciprocity to rectify the extractive fieldwork practices that sustain the illiberal politics of interpretation of academic anthropology.     

知识经济背景下的中国现代化走向

知识经济的出现是一场广泛而深刻的革命,就其规模和深度说,不亚于19世纪的工业革命.它不仅改变人们的生产方式、生活方式和思维方式,而且引发许多传统经济学无法解释的新情况、新问题;它不仅赋予我国现代化以新的时代内涵,而且完全可能促使我国的现代化进程跳跃式的发展.     

The Political Economy of Familial Relations: The Japanese State and Families in a Changing Political Economy

This article explores the ongoing negotiation over the boundaries between the world of political economy and families by analysing the reactions and responses of the Japanese government and feminists to changes in the political economy as well as popular patterns of family forming since the 1990s. This negotiation has occurred through the transition in the political economy brought about by globalisation and neo-liberal political reforms, and the re-calibration of family and gender roles has emerged as its primary ground. As a result, Japanese women are being required to make a hasty leap from the Fordist model of family life to a more self-steering idea of the individual. This ineluctably re-calibrates the bio-political arrangement into a more advanced mechanism, while discussion of the ‘ethics of care’ has been left relatively absent. Taking up these issues, this article discusses the implications of a changing political economy on Japanese families.     

An Investigation of the Household Economy: Coffee Production and Gender Relations in Papua New Guinea

Using two years of intra‐household data from one area of the Papua New Guinea Highlands this article examines the impact of gender relations on household coffee production. Poor relative labour returns for women and the unequal distribution of tasks within the household were found to exert considerable influence on the level of household success in cultivating coffee. The article concludes with the construction of a model linking the intra‐household distribution of economic benefits, determinants of household resource allocation and underdevelopment.     

The Public Sector Reform Movement: Mapping the Global Policy Network

Public sector reform in both developed and developing countries has now become a routine matter of public policy—reform is almost continuous, if not always successful. While the role of international transfer agents such as the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in promoting reforms has often been noted, there has been no comprehensive mapping of the global network on public sector reform. This article makes a first attempt to map the close to 100 organizations that make up a loose global network around public administration and governance. It then provides a brief history of the evolution of the network, and the key events that encouraged a substantial degree of coherence among its members. It examines the practices and tools that are specific to this global public policy network, and concludes with some observations on policy transfer models. The article shows that in trying to understand the dynamics of public administration reform, we need to pay greater attention to this network, its members, and its influence over national policy priorities.     

The Free-Market Economy Is Fundametally Healthy

Though another Great Depression seems to have been averted for the moment, great geo-economic shifts are in the works as a result of the global meltdown emanating from Wall Street. Four Nobel laureates in economics take a look at where we are headed.     

The Political Economy of Institutions,Stability and Investment: A Simultaneous Equation Approach in an Emerging Economy. The Case of South Africa

The modern theory of investment identifies the importance of uncertainty to investment. A number of empirical studies have tested the theory on South African time series, employing political instability measures as proxies for uncertainty. This paper verifies that political instability measures are required in the formulation of the investment function for South Africa. It also establishes that there are distinct institutional factors that influence the uncertainty variable such as property rights and crime levels. We find that rising income and property rights lower political instability, and that rising crime levels are positively related to political instability. The inference is that political instability in South Africa may not represent uncertainty directly, since it is systematically related to a set of determinants. Instead, uncertainty would have to be understood as being related to a broader institutional nexus that in concert may generate uncertainty for investors. The paper highlights the significance of getting institutions right to ensure that uncertainty is kept to a minimum by providing a predictable long-term environment. Stability at a systemic level appears crucial if investment rates are to rise in South Africa and this paper demonstrates that stability in turn is driven by a sound institutional environment that has multiple dimensions.