This paper briefly tackles the main points on coherence contributed by AER during roundtable discussion at the International Conference on Financing for Development. It begins to describe coherence as associated with consistency and integrity of policies while at the same time, allows flexibility and resists rigidity. The paper then asserts that coherence does not assume […]
This paper was presented at the Forum on the Macapagal-Arroyo Tax Reform Program organized by Action for Economic Reforms and the Human Development Network and held on 22 October 2001. The paper asserts that the proposed shift to gross income tax does not address the pressing problems of the moment, specifically, a slipping BIR tax […]
This paper looks into the most crucial challenge confronting the Macapagal-Arroyo administration in relation to the mobilization of domestic resources. This is none other than the implementation of a coherent and practicable tax reform agenda whose goal is to increase the tax effort (measured as taxes as a proportion of gross domestic product) to a […]
The economy-wide impact of the restructuring of electricity industry makes it an important area for continuing study. This paper looks into the proposed restructuring of the electricity industry, to be accomplished through legal reform, from three perspectives. First, the paper examines the restructuring from the standpoint of the legal conception of the government-nongovernment distinction obtaining […]
Mainstream economics relegated political economy to a backseat position during the dominance of neo-liberalism in the 1980s till the early
1990s. But the tide has changed. Market failures in the 1990s, as exemplified by the successive global financial crises that culminated in the Asian crisis, have forced a retreat of free-market orthodoxy. Keynesian economics, including its left-wing variety, has recovered lost ground. Further, even the strongest advocates of neoclassical economics have recognized the need for better institutions and better regulations. Suffice it to say that in this condition, political economy has likewise made a comeback.