The impact of pollution and abatement policy within a stochastic endogenous growth model is analyzed. Environmental care is provided by the government and financed through income taxation and government bonds. Due to environmental preferences and partial perception of the individual’s impact on pollution, government debt influences equilibrium growth. Hence, there is an additional growth effect...

This paper examines the economics of for-profit and not-for-profit hospitals through the prism of capital acquisitions. The exercise suggests that of two hospitals that are equally efficient in producing health care, the for-profit hospital would have to charge higher prices than the not-for-profit hospital would, to break even on capital acquisitions. The reasons for this divergence are (1) th...

A well-crafted retail sales tax on all goods and services could replace all 36 other state-level taxes in Kansas— including the personal and corporate income taxes. The tax rate could be eight percent (8%) or less, after the state government makes budget adjustments related to the recent recession-driven revenue shortfalls. Such a bold move holds the promise of making Kansas one of the most gro...

Literature in tax avoidance indicates that the proceeds of tax avoidance can be invested on production affairs, which in turn enhance the future expected cash flow, thereby reducing the cost of equity. Based on this reasoning, the present study aims to examine whether tax avoidance is associated with the cost of equity with emphasis on the moderating effect of outside monitoring. To calculate t...

Historically, the Islamic state collected zakat (similar to the tithe of other regions) as national income. In Indonesia, the private sector can raise zakat funds more effectively than the government. In 2010, zakat became tax-deductible income. This paper tries to analyze some factors that affect preference for zakat as a tax deduction in Indonesia. The effectiveness of the regulation is also ...

The health risk resulting from benzene exposure in petroleum refineries was calculated using data from the scientific literature from various countries throughout the world. The exposure data was collated into four scenarios from petroleum refinery environments and plotted as cumulative probability distributions (CPD) plots. Health risk was evaluated for each scenario using the Hazard Quotient ...

When product markets are monopolistic, an income redistributive policy affects social welfare not only through changes in disposable income but also through changes in product prices. In the optimal income tax formula, we then obtain a Pigouvian term correcting for this price externality. We provide sufficient conditions when the Pigouvian term is progressive among top earners. Moreover, if the...

Petroleum exploration and production is an industry that provides researchers with multi-variant challenging “real world” properties. Recently, some petroleum soft computing techniques have gained a greater interest in prediction within the oil industry. This paper is interested in the analysis, classifying, mining and predictions, based on fuzzy as an intelligent system and an intelligent syst...

A method is described for extracting the petroleum from petroleum-bearing ̄uid inclusions hosted in the diagenetic cements of sedimentary rocks, whilst minimising contamination from petroleum in the pore space. A clean-up technique, involving the addition of extraction standards to the rock prior to analysis, has been developed that allows increased con®dence that the hydrocarbons extracted are...

Unexpected price spikes in petroleum can lead to instability in markets and have a negative economic effect on sectors which rely on petroleum consumption. Sudden rises in the price of petroleum do not have to be long-term to cause negative, cascading impacts across the economy. Firms which make futures purchases or hedge against a higher price during a price spike can become insolvent when the...