In practice, theory is something else. I've already heard variants of this expression in several countries and languages. Very often from people referring to the gap between abstract, generic principles and the implementation of projects and policies.
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Book Title: In From the Shadow : Integrating Europe’s Informal Labor
by Truman Packard, Johannes Koettl, Claudio Montenegro
Few phenomena that occupy the time of governments and economists are as ambiguously defined and difficult to measure as the “shadow" or "informal" economy. Those terms immediately make some people think of the guys who built an extension for their house and insisted on being paid in cash. Others remember the taxi driver who took them home after a late night out, and either didn’t have a meter or didn’t turn it on. Those who have been in very poor countries might recall bustling markets where you can haggle for anything from a handful of fresh chilies to a pair of sandals or even livestock. All of these are likely to be part of the unregulated and untaxed transactions that make up a country's informal economy.
I recently conducted a literature review on the impact of tax reforms on private sector development as part of the Investment Climate Impact Project.1 My goal was to take stock of what is currently known about the impact of reforms that the World Bank is supporting in this area and to identify the gaps in knowledge that we ought to fill by conducting more impact evaluations. While tax reforms can have a broad range of effects in the economy, the focus here was on private sector outcomes only, as measured by investment, tax evasion by formal firms, formal firm creation, and firms’ economic performance.
It turns out that most papers in this area study the impact of changing tax rates. Both cross-country and micro-level studies suggest that lowering tax rates can increase investment, reduce tax evasion, promote formal firm creation and ultimately lead to an increase in firms’ sales and GDP growth overall. However, lowering tax rates also has important implications for government revenue and it is thus often difficult to balance the trade-offs between various goals of public policy.
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A few receiving countries already tax remittances, often through indirect means. For example, remittances sent from the US to Cuba can only be paid to recipients in Cuban Convertible pesos (CUC) or Chavitos with a tax of 20 percent for conversion of US$ to CUCs. The US government and a US senator called upon Cuba to repeal this tax when the US lifted restrictions on sending remittances to Cuba. Other countries that have a parallel market premium with an overvalued official exchange rate, e.g., Ethiopia, Pakistan, and Venezuela to name a few, also implicitly tax remittances when they require recipients to convert remittances to local currency at uncompetitive official exchange rates. Philippines used to impose a small Documentary Stamp Tax (DST) of 0.3 pesos for every 200 pesos, but this was scrapped in November (see article).
The current budget (FY10) expects a significant increase in revenue collection, a perennial problem in the country. The target revenue was set at 610.00 billion taka ($8.8 billion) with 261.10 billion collected in the first half and the remaining 348.90 billion in the second. The realization of this target requires a year on-y growth of 16.15%, which, being a notable departure from the trend growth rates was received with sheer skepticism from the economic observers of the country. However, about 33.67% more revenue has to be collected in the second half of the fiscal year as compared to the first half which seems realistic in the light of the fiscal performances of the last 5 fiscal years.
“What you don’t touch, for you lies miles away. (…) What you don’t coin, you’re sure is counterfeit.” These sophisms are voiced by Mephistopheles, under the guise of the Court Fool, in Goethe’s Faust. He aims to convince the Emperor to mint more coins, for money buys everything: parks and palaces; breasts and rosy cheeks. The Commander-in-Chief accompanies the scene and speaks his mind: “The Court Fool is wise, for he promises benefits to all.”
Economic theory, in contrast to the Commander-in-Chief, the Court Fool and other populists, states that all government handouts come at a cost – regardless of whether they are distributed in the form of subsidies or direct transfers. Financing them is only possible by raising taxes and getting into debt (or creating more money… and inflation).
Soaring food prices have suddenly become a major concern for policy makers in East Asia. The price of rice - which provides one third of the region's caloric intake - is a particular worry. Rice prices have been moving higher since around 2004, although this was from very depressed levels in the early years of the decade. Prices surpassed $300 a ton in early 2006 for the first time since the late 1990s, kept moving higher, and then took off at an accelerating pace from late 2007: up 11 percent in the the fourth quarter, then 56 percent in the first quarter of 2008 an
