In light of the academic challenge to the notion of competitiveness, AEI has gathered experts to research the value of the concept of competitiveness in different spheres. How do we define competitiveness, and is it worth pursuing as a policy goal? In what way do countries compete in various areas, including international trade, financial services and health care? 

The FairTax proposal, which now has fifty-four sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives, would institute a national retail sales tax to replace individual and corporate income taxes, payroll and self-employment taxes, and estate and gift taxes. The question of what sales-tax rate would be needed to replace the revenue...

There is bipartisan agreement that the current corporate income tax regime needs to be changed, but substantial debate exists over what the optimal corporate tax policy would look like. Last October, House Ways and Means chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) proposed a 4.5 percentage point decrease in the corporate income tax...

Proposals to expand tax-deferred savings accounts are generally estimated to result in a loss of tax revenue, according to models used by the U.S. Treasury and the Congressional Budget Office. In this seminar in AEI’s tax policy series, Professor Jonathan Skinner of Dartmouth College presents evidence suggesting the opposite,...

Economic analysis provides partial, but not complete, support for proposals to broaden the corporate tax base and lower the statutory tax rate.

Neither the CBO nor the Treasury's assumptions--that capital bears 100 percent or that no one bears the tax--are valid. Both approaches fail to reflect recent empirical and theoretic research that finds workers bear a large portion of the burden of the CIT.

Many countries have restructured their corporate income taxes in recent years, mainly through reductions in tax rates. These international changes have put pressure on the United States to reform its corporate tax, little changed since 1986. Should the United States follow these overseas trends? At this seminar, eminent economists and...

The United States could lower its corporate tax rate without losing any revenue.