Questions tagged [economy]
Questions relating to the politics of economic theory or economic policy of any country or the international community. General economic questions can be asked on Economics.SE https://economics.stackexchange.com/
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How does the credit rating of a country affect its populace?
I am coming from a UK perspective; we lost our AAA credit rating in 2013, and dropped again in 2017 after the referendum on European Union membership. It was reported last week that we are set to be ...
CDJB♦
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How do states with no state income tax like Florida or Texas generate tax revenue?
How do states with no state income tax like Florida or Texas generate tax revenue? Do they have higher property tax or sales tax?
I compared their property and sales taxes with other states with ...
user38056
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Why did some US institutions not migrate their very old software systems to use somewhat newer ones?
This article shows us that some US institutions rely on very old systems (written decades ago, which is very long in IT time perspective):
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy says that the state is looking ...
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Is US Congressional spending “borrowing” money in the name of the public?
Watching the C-SPAN feed in regards to the American Rescue Plan, Rep. Tom Rice insists that we are "borrowing ~$5,500 for every man, woman, and child in [the US]."
I remind the people back ...
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How do leaders choose between lives and money?
Amid the current pandemic many governments imposed heavy social restrictions in an attempt to flatten the curve and thereby save lives, and those restrictions take their toll on the economies. For ...
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Why fund research in pure mathematics?
I post this question on politics.se, as suggested by this answer of Bjørn Kjos-Hanssen.
The research in pure mathematics has (generally) no other choice that being funded by public organizations ...
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Why do the USA and the European Union treat GMOs so differently?
According to the sources cited within this paragraph, there is a scientific consensus that "currently available food derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food, ...
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Why there was no Marshall plan for 1990s Russia?
Just imagine the completely different world today if Russia were a part of Free World, member of NATO and a prosperous democracy, like Germany.
Was it ever discussed, and if so, why wasn't it ...
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How would the trillion-dollar coin save the United States' economy?
Recently I read in a news post that the Treasury Department is able to order the coinage of a coin made of platinum with a value of 1,000,000,000,000 USD, or 1 trillion US dollars.
You can read about ...
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Why can't the West just ban Russia from trade?
President Biden has announced new sanctions on Russia after Russia invaded Ukraine unprovoked.
From CNN:
President Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled harsh new sanctions on Russia meant to punish the ...
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Did Germany profit from the (third) Greek bailout?
From an article published in June 2018 on thelocal.de:
Berlin has been one of the main lenders to Greece during its debt crisis. While conservative parties warned that supporting Greece would come ...
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Does currency exist in communism?
I've thought about this before, but never heard any explanation as to how this works.
My understanding of communism is:
Everyone works.
Everything is rationed out equally.
Since there is no ...
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Who is lending the money for a nation's debt?
It seems most governments (certainly the US, Europe, Australia) have racked up a national debt - but who are the lenders that these governments are indebted to?
Where does the government get the ...
user6298
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Why did the Russian Federation never stress economic growth as China did?
China stressed economic development and GDP growth in the 1970s when Deng Xiao Ping proposed the economic reform in 1978. China never stopped after that.
Regarding the USSR, Gorbachev tried to bring ...
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Why does decriminalisation/legalisation not reduce the cost of drugs?
It is conventional wisdom that the criminalisation of the supply of recreational psychoactive drugs causes an increase in the cost to supply and therefore to the user. In an unreferenced but somewhat ...
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What have been the arguments against VAT in the US?
The majority of countries in the world have implemented a Value Added Tax (VAT) - sometimes called a Goods and Services Tax (GST) - why hasn't the US?
EDIT - I would assume that if a VAT were ...
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Can Brexit be undone in an emergency?
In case Brexit has already happened, can it be reversed after a short time?
Legally, the answer is no, I think.
But I can imagine a situation where, during the first few days after Brexit, all ...
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Do any nations have in place formal mechanisms to "save in good years/spend in bad years"?
One tenet of Keynesian economics is that a government can improve long term economic efficiency, and individual well-being, by deficit spending during recessions.
Some examples of that might be:
US ...
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Why hasn't Russia or China come up with any system yet to bypass USD?
China urged to tap RCEP trade deal for future digital payments system as US sanctions loom
China should consider using digital technology to develop an alternative to the SWIFT financial payments ...
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Why did local authorities in England and Wales stop building homes?
From the 1970s–1980s, UK government local authorities stopped building homes:
(Source: BBC News)
Or, with raw figures from the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government spreadsheet, ...
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Confused about the term 'Bourgeoisie'!
Bourgeoisie is defined by,
the middle class, typically with reference to its perceived materialistic values or conventional attitudes
As refer to Google define,
Here, I see it actually means the ...
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What are the consequences if a country decides to selectively cancel debt?
(Not sure if this should be on the Economics SE; however I am interested in both economic & political consequences)
Trump threatens new tariffs on China as US mulls retaliatory action over COVID-...
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How does the World Economic Forum seem to have so much influence?
Searching on Google News for World Economic Forum produces:
About 23,800,000 results (1.00 seconds)
Sampling some of these produces quite a mixed array of opinions, from highly supportive, to bored, ...
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If SWIFT is headquartered in Europe, why does the EU need to create a SWIFT alternative to be able to do transactions with Iran?
If SWIFT is headquartered in Europe, why does the EU need to create a SWIFT alternative to be able to do transactions with Iran? It seems that the U.S. has significant control over SWIFT although ...
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Dealing with crime in cryptocurrency based economies
Most cryptocurrencies are anonymous where the origin of coins is not known and transactions are also anonymous (this may not be 100% true but lets assume perfect anonymity). The society prevents ...
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What happens if a country becomes bankrupt?
What happens to the citizens of the country? What happens to the sovereignty of the country? What happens to the neighbors?
For example, what will happen if Greece becomes bankrupt?
user4514
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Why does the US still maintain so many military facilities in Western Europe?
The US maintains a lot of military facilities in countries like Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, etc.
This doesn't make economic sense. The US military expenditure is on trajectory to reach a ...
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Why aren't nationalizations in Russia described as socialist?
I read in a 2015 PIIE brief titled "Russia’s Economy under
Putin: From Crony Capitalism to State Capitalism" that:
After nationalizing Yukos, the Russian government started
taking control of ...
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Does the US government have any planning in place to ensure there's no shortages of food, fuel, steel and other commodities?
Every time we go shopping store shelves are full of food, gas stations are stocked up on gas, car dealerships have no shortage of cars, etc. But who is ensuring that all of the complex processes ...
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Why do small African island nations perform better than African continental nations, considering democracy and human development?
This question is interdisciplinary between economics and politics, but I suspect the answer lies more in politics and history than in economics, which is why I decided to post it here.
Looking at the ...
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What is the theory behind using the 14th Amendment to ignore the debt ceiling?
President Biden raised a few eyebrows in that he's said he isn't ready to invoke the 14th Amendment and ignore the debt ceiling... yet. From Reuters
President Joe Biden said on Friday he was not yet ...
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If only people with at least $1,000,000 annual income were taxed, what would their tax rate have to be to avoid a drop in income tax revenue?
If personal income taxes were eliminated entirely for anyone with less than $1,000,000 income, there is one flat tax rate for those who are taxed, and corporate income taxes and all other taxes staued ...
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What are the practical effects of having too large a debt load?
My understanding is that Japan has a debt-to-gdp ratio of approximately 200%. It is considered to be one of the worst in the world.
The United States is only in the 100% range. What effects would ...
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Is there any evidence that public transport splitting, corporatisation or privitisation affects quality?
In Europe in the last 10–30 years, many public transportation companies have been split up in parts, with some parts corporatised and some parts privatised. This has partly been motivated by an ...
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Why is India diverting its resources to build its second mission to Mars?
The only gain I can think of for going to Mars is that it will bring glory based on the achievement.
Are there any tangible benefits for India going to Mars with respect to common people?
Note: ...
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Why did Truss's planned removal of a tax increase cause the market/pound to tank?
I'm having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around this one. Why was it that when a tax break (or, removal of a tax increase) was announced, the market and pound reacted negatively? Wouldn't the ...
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Why do some countries forbid working on Sunday rather than strictly regulating it?
According to this source, Poland will gradually forbid commerce on Sundays:
Poland’s ruling party approved a law that will gradually impose a ban
on Sunday shopping, meeting the demand of its ...
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Why was having a common currency in the EU seen as necessary?
When it was introduced, the € (Euro) was supposed to be the common currency for the entire EU, even if it turned out many countries (such as the UK) would stay in the EU without using the € currency, ...
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Why does Venezuela have such high inflation?
Background:
In late 2013, Venezuela's inflation rates increased even higher, to 54.3%,
As of January 2014, the official exchange rate is 1 USD to 6.3 VEF while the black market exchange rate is ...
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What are the pros and cons of having so many state-owned companies?
What are the pros and cons of having so many state-owned companies?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_government-owned_companies
State-owned enterprises accounted for over 60% of China's market
...
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What reasons do pro-trade politicians use to justify retaliatory tariffs?
The general "neoliberal" position towards trade is that it benefits both sides and low tariffs/subsidies are beneficial. This has been the dominant trend in wealthy nations for the last thirty plus ...
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What are the upsides of having a birthright citizenship policy?
I've been reading a lot about the birth tourism issue in Canada lately, but this issue applies to any country with birthright citizenship.
From a New York Times article describing the issue:
Under ...
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Are worker cooperatives socialist, capitalist, or their own category?
This question inquires about private ownership vs. state ownership. However, there is a 3rd category that may or may not be considered as private ownership: Worker cooperatives.
In the model of ...
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Why did Russia default on its domestic bonds in 1998 when it could simply print money?
Russia defaulted on its domestic debt in 1998. It did not have to do so because the bonds were denominated in Russian Ruble and the government could simply have printed money to pay the bonds. Why ...
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Why is the Gini coefficient of Egypt at the levels of Nordic countries?
The Gini coefficient of Egypt is about .3. This is about .02 or so away from the coefficient of countries like Finland, Sweden, etc. And for comparison, the USA is above Egypt by .04 points or so.
So ...
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Why does Russia choose to depend on the Bosporus Strait for shipping?
According to the Wikipedia article on the proposed Istanbul Canal, it is said that the Bosporus has nearly 3 times the amount of ship traffic as the Suez Canal. Presumably this ship traffic comes ...
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How can Germany increase investments in Russia while EU economic sanctions against Russia are still in place?
According to Wikipedia EU economical sanctions against Russia are still in place:
The sanctions by the European Union and United States continue to be
in effect as of May 2019. In July 2018, the ...
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Do Western countries want for Russia to default or not on its foreign debt?
According to TASS, Russia should be able to avoid defaulting on its foreign debt because now, as opposed to 1998, it has enough financial reserves. However, the issue is that a big fraction of its ...
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Why does Russia always put importance on world dominance rather than economic development?
For instance, China has also put importance on military muscle, but not with the price of the economy.
The following graph shows that Russia's GDP is falling and China's GDP has rocketed.
The ...
user4514
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Why hasn't North Korea adopted a market economy?
Both China and Vietnam, communist countries in the same region as North Korea, allowed a market economy after a while. By contrast, my understanding is that North Korea has dabbled in a market economy ...
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