This paper shows that productivity shocks to the top 100 U.S. companies (as identified in Gabaix (2011)) contain systematic information. Specifically, shocks to the top 100 firms predict future shocks to geographically close firms. Intra-sector trade links are an important economic channel for the cascade effect. However, these geographic spillovers are not only restricted to firms’ explicit in...

Small and Medium Enterprises play a very important role in development of the Nigerian economy. Making up about 97% of the entire economy, they serve as a source of employment generation, innovation, competition, economic dynamism which ultimately lead to poverty alleviation and national growth. Tax policy is one of the factors that constitute the SMEs’ economic environment. This research work ...

The tax-expenditure hypothesis posed by Milton Friedman emphasizes a positive causal relationship between government tax revenues and government expenditures. If citizens do not have a correct perception of the real tax burden and under-estimate the price of public goods and services, there is a negative causal relationship between tax revenues and government expenditures, which indicates exist...

To encourage home ownership, the United States tax code treats the financing and sale of housing differently from most other goods. For example, the interest payments on your home mortgage and your property taxes are deduct-ible from your federal income taxes while the interest on your credit card bill for your vacation to Paris is not. Furthermore, the profit you make on the sale of your house...

The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, established by the Social Security Amendments of 1972 (Public Law 92-603), was designed to provide cash assistance to needy aged, blind, and disabled citizens, and noncitizens lawfully admitted for permanent residence or permanently residing under color of law. Since then, this means-tested program has undergone many legislative changes that affec...