Blog
Hobby research on various topics or summaries of academic articles
When shareholder power kicks in
The fraction of firm income that is distributed to shareholders has been increasing over the last decades. Not because of some form of shareholder bonanza, nor because firm income is declining! Corporate financialization manifests as ratchet behaviour, where shareholders refuse to yield ground when profits decrease. It is the downward rigidity of shareholder remuneration that ratchets up payout ratios persistently at the firm level, resulting in aggregate payout ratios being structured along the lines of the frequency of such ratchet behaviour. This is a very short summary of a research article published in Socio-Economic Review
Progressive Income taxation I: how does it work?
Taxes are not the most exciting topic (for most people at least), but they are a fundamental building block of our society. There are many misconceptions about them, so this article aims to clarify a few aspects. We also show that the United States - not exactly a communist country - had a marginal tax rate of 91% until 1963. You can read about how it was in Belgium in part two, but we recommend reading the article below first.
Progressive Income Taxation II: Belgian historical tax rates
Countries that cannot immediately be labeled as communist, such as the US, once had personal income taxes with top marginal rates as high as 91%. Little has been written about the history of Belgian rates. We delved into the archives and found that marginal rates in Belgium were also much higher in the past. What can we learn from our recent history about a potential tax reform?