Publications
Thomas Karier
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Policy Note 2000/3 | March 2000
Measuring the Impact of Welfare Reform
The rules and regulations that were developed to reduce welfare rolls through immediate employment discourage the achievement of economic independence through the pursuit of higher education.
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Policy Note 1998/1 | January 1998
College and Financial Independence
Are the effects of college-level education on income and financial independence positive enough to make it worthwhile for states to extend support to qualified welfare recipients to enable them to pursue such education? Welfare reform around the country has tended to focus on immediate work experience as a means to achieve financial independence. While many states continue to provide and encourage short-term education and training as a complement to job search, they often actively discourage longer-term education, especially two- and four-year college degree programs. Grants and loans may make it possible for low-income students to attend a college or university, but they are unlikely to be sufficient to enable those students to support a family as well. Low-income single parents may find themselves able to finance college tuition and fees, but unable to attend because they cannot support their family during the time required to earn their degree.
A proper analysis of this issue requires evaluating the benefits of providing welfare assistance to college students. Are the outcomes sufficiently positive that states should continue to support those welfare recipients with the necessary ability and desire to pursue postsecondary education? The results of this study indicate that the returns to a college degree for welfare recipients are sufficiently high to make postsecondary education a particularly promising avenue to financial independence.
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Public Policy Brief No. 22 | September 1995
Evaluating the Sources of R&D Spending
Both spending and tax policies have been implemented in the United States with the goal of stimulating private sector research and development (R&D). Thomas Karier questions whether current R&D policy, especially the research and experimentation tax credit, can contribute to closing the gap between nondefense expenditures on R&D in the United States and such expenditures in other countries, such as Japan and Germany. He also explores possible changes to our current R&D policy to make it more effective.
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Working Paper No. 137 | February 1995
No further information available.
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Public Policy Brief No. 13 | June 1994
Business Tax Incentives and Investments
In this brief, Thomas Karier explores the efficacy of the investment tax credit (ITC) in stimulating private investment spending. He notes that there are three possible channels through which an ITC can act on investment: price, income, and multiplier effects. He finds that ITCs do not appear to have had a significant effect on equipment investment; that the effects of a decline in corporate tax rates (the income effect) were distributed among increased dividends and fewer equity and debt issuances and had little influence on investment; and that capacity utilization and real GDP growth were the only business cycle variables that had a significant effect on equipment investment growth. Based on these findings, Karier concludes that alternatives to tax investment credit programs must be found and pursued. He suggests undertaking a modest program of direct public investment financed by rearranging spending priorities within the budget; a more expansive program could be financed through additional borrowing or through an increase in the corporate income tax.
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Working Paper No. 103 | February 1994
No further information available.
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Working Paper No. 89 | April 1993
There is no single best estimate of profits because different purposes require measures. For example, profits in national income should be different than profits in financial statements. But given these differences, there are certain economic standards that should apply to all profit measures. These standards are described and then used to evaluate the appropriateness of several currently available measures of profits including those reported by the National Income and Product Accounts, Internal Revenue Service, Quarterly Financial Report, Compustat, and Business Week.
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Working Paper No. 44 | February 1991
Representation Elections, Structural Change, and Restructuring
During the 1980s several qualitative changes occurred in the union decline. First, net gains from certification (less decertification) elections fell to insignificant levels, tending to accelerate the union decline. On the other hand, union losses from the relative growth of nonunion services (structural change) also declined sharply as unionization rates became more homogeneous across sectors. As a consequence, virtually all changes in the unionization rate during the 1980s were caused by disproportional gains in non-union employment within sectors (restructuring).
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Working Paper No. 37 | May 1990
The radical reorientation of the federal budget during the 1980s provided generously for military expansion at the expense of pressing social needs. In the wake of such dramatic upheavals, the federal government will eventually be compelled to seek out new sources of revenue in order to compensate for the decade of neglect. But where will the resources be found to close the deficit, fully fund education, support the sick and impoverished, rebuild the infrastructure, and cleanup the environment? The Economic Policy Institute has placed a price tag of $65 billion on these necessities. As policy makers survey the revenue alternatives—military cuts, a more progressive income tax, a corporate take-over tax—one area they should not overlook is the corporate profit tax.
Most people were aware that the corporate profit tax provided relatively little revenue in support of federal expenditures during the 1980s. But perhaps less well-known is the fact that corporations have enjoyed a steady decrease in their tax share for the past three decades. In 1960 corporate profit taxes financed approximately 22% of all expenditures by the federal government compared to only 7% in 1986. By exploring the reasons for this decline it becomes possible to appreciate the magnitude of the potential revenue that could be generated from corporate tax reform.
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Working Paper No. 36 | April 1990
The purpose of this paper is to outline a consistent microeconomic theory of the firm based on the concept of monopoly power. It builds on the heritage of Post Keynesian authors, Robinson, Kaldor, and Kalecki, but literally extends the theory in several directions. First, monopoly power is defined formally in terms of substitution. In this way, monopoly power is recognized as a fundamental characteristic of a firm which in turn affects other aspects of its behavior. Also in this theory, the relationships between monopoly power, demand elasticities, markups, total profits, and the distribution of profits, are traced systematically. Before turning to the theory it is important to point out that I have benefited as much from the mistakes of my predecessors as from their genuine insights. Kriesler (1987), for example, noted that Kalecki created considerable confusion by failing to clearly distinguish between the degree of monopoly and the markup. This problem is resolved here by defining monopoly power in terms of substitution and identifying it as one of several determinants of the markup. It is always easier to recognize a problem like this one and propose a solution when someone else has stumbled across it first.
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Working Paper No. 34 | January 1990
Unions, Monopoly Power, and Comparative Advantage
Based on an analysis of industry by region data the author finds little evidence that U.S. unions have been a significant factor in the decision of U.S. firms to produce abroad. Additional evidence suggests that U.S. foreign production may have had a negligible effect on the domestic unionization rate. Corresponding with previous research, the results do indicate that comparative advantage, monopoly power, and foreign tariffs are important determinants of U.S. foreign production.
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