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Research areas

Property Tax Reform

Detail the political economy of property tax reform in low-property tax states. Analyze potential for tax increases on high-value properties to capture tax revenue lost from “wealth optimizing” offshore financial instruments as property cannot be hidden, even if its owners remain concealed. Regardless, the tax must be paid. Further examined will how revenues gained from property taxes can be used to increase the non-taxable minimum income threshold, thus promoting equity in society. In short, property taxes in sum can be revenue neutral, but with a shift in the sectoral balance of social groups that carry tax burdens. Furthermore, the project will examine the effect of property tax increases on decreasing property inflation, of which the latter imposes costs on buyers while increasing revenue for financial institutions given the larger mortgages serviced required to buy property. Another aim is to reduce the percent of income required to buy housing, and thus liberate capital in use for other purposes.

Escaping Middle Income Traps

Inspect both path-dependent roads (geography, etc.) and agency (choices) as means for either inhibiting or transitioning out of middle-income traps. Such economies are characterized by manufacturing and service economies lacking in high-profit Headquarter Functions.  Industry alone often produced high-profit levels before the end of the Bretton Woods Era. But as more states climbed rungs of the development ladder and developed manufacturing, this eventually led to declines in rates of profit given the ensuing global glut, or overcapacity, in manufacturing. Service economies provided no better solution for escaping middle-income traps given their low-fixed capital costs translated into ease of exit to tap other global pools of high-skills based workforces. Companies possessing Headquarter Functions (branding and research and design with profits enhanced by patents and intellectual property), however, are those that most successfully transitioned to high-income economies. Seminars and ongoing research projects identifying best practices for fostering development of HQ functions constitute another research direction of our Center. In particular, the zone of manufacturing stretching near the Carpathians from Poland in the north to Romania in the south will be studied for their potential to develop more Headquarter functions in promotion of creating high-income economies.

Redistribution at the Kitchen Table

the central goal of this research project is to delve into one of the most private concerns of individuals, couples and families: money matters. To be more precise, nested against the background of couples’ and extended families’ divisions around the making and spending of monies and wealth is the goal of documenting the diversity of ideals and actual arrangements to do with securing the costs of children at the micro level across post-socialist societies, Romania and other nations, including Bulgaria, Albania, Moldova, Hungary etc.; and explaining this diversity of ideals and arrangements. By unpicking the ideational and financial terrain on which the costs of children are borne, we are able to contribute to a number of debates, not just on the extent to which children might have become luxuries in post-socialist societies, but also on the (in)adequacies of public support for couples and families yet without and already with children in various forms; the (in)adequacies of the safeguarding of children in challenging socio-economic circumstances disproportionately exposing them to diverse forms of exploitation; the (in)adequacies of the tax system towards vertical redistribution; and, not least, the (in)adequacies of financial markets and products undergirding microlevel debt. In a piecemeal fashion, we seek to show who is paying for our kids, how and why so in contemporary post-socialist Romania and nearby countries.

Reconfiguring Global Order

International Political Economy research explaining present economic logics to best enable forecasting of evolving future trends. Craft effective development policy by states within an ever-reconfiguring global order. Among policy areas researched will be shortening supply chains in response to emergent security crises, e.g., pandemics, deteriorating international relations, etc. In select areas, such as the EU, investments accelerating productivity growth will be required to outpace demographic imbalances (labor shortages) along with investigation of optimal limits on immigration to prevent social tensions that might tip governments in the direction of authoritarian responses.