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Tax Policy
Tax policy refers to the guidelines and principles established by a government for the imposition and collection of taxes. It encompasses both microeconomic and macroeconomic aspects. The former focuses on issues of fairness and efficiency in tax collection, and the latter focuses on the overall quantity of taxes to be collected and its impact on economic activity. The tax framework of a country is considered a crucial instrument for influencing the country's economy. Tax policies have significant implications for specific groups within an economy, such as households, firms, and banks. These policies are often intended to promote economic growth; however, there is significant debate among economists about the most effective ways to achieve this. Taxation is both a political and economic issue. Political leaders often use tax policies to advance their agendas through various tax reforms, such as changes to tax rates, definitions of taxable income, and the creation of new taxes. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microeconomics
Microeconomics is a branch of economics that studies the behavior of individuals and Theory of the firm, firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarcity, scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. Microeconomics focuses on the study of individual markets, sectors, or industries as opposed to the economy as a whole, which is studied in macroeconomics. One goal of microeconomics is to analyze the market mechanisms that establish relative prices among goods and services and allocate limited resources among alternative uses. Microeconomics shows conditions under which free markets lead to desirable allocations. It also analyzes market failure, where markets fail to produce Economic efficiency, efficient results. While microeconomics focuses on firms and individuals, macroeconomics focuses on the total of economic activity, dealing with the issues of Economic growth, growth, inflation, and unemployment—and with national policies relati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Income Distribution
In economics, income distribution covers how a country's total GDP is distributed amongst its population. Economic theory and economic policy have long seen income and its distribution as a central concern. Unequal distribution of income causes economic inequality which is a concern in almost all countries around the world. About Classical economists such as Adam Smith (1723–1790), Thomas Malthus (1766–1834), and David Ricardo (1772–1823) concentrated their attention on factor income-distribution, that is, the Distribution (economics), distribution of income between the primary factors of production (Land (economics), land, Labour economics, labour and Capital (economics), capital). Modern economists have also addressed issues of income distribution, but have focused more on the distribution of income across individuals and households. Important theoretical and policy concerns include the balance between income inequality and economic growth, and their often inverse relati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Welfare
Welfare spending is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance programs which provide support only to those who have previously contributed (e.g. pensions), as opposed to ''social assistance'' programs which provide support on the basis of need alone (e.g. most disability benefits). The International Labour Organization defines social security as covering support for those in old age, support for the maintenance of children, medical treatment, parental and sick leave, unemployment and disability benefits, and support for sufferers of occupational injury. More broadly, welfare may also encompass efforts to provide a basic level of well-being through subsidized ''social services'' such as healthcare, education, infrastructure, vocational training, and public housing.''The New Fontana Dictionar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States asserts sovereignty over five Territories of the United States, major island territories and United States Minor Outlying Islands, various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean. It is a megadiverse country, with the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest land area and List of countries and dependencies by population, third-largest population, exceeding 340 million. Its three Metropolitan statistical areas by population, largest metropolitan areas are New York metropolitan area, New York, Greater Los Angeles, Los Angel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Security (United States)
In the United States, Social Security is the commonly used term for the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program and is administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA). The Social Security Act was passed in 1935,Social Security Act of 1935 and the existing version of the Act, as amended, 2 USC 7 encompasses several social welfare and social insurance programs. The average monthly Social Security benefit for May 2025 was $1,903. This was raised from $1,783 in 2024. The total cost of the Social Security program for 2022 was $1.244 trillion or about 5.2 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). In 2025 there have been proposed budget cuts to social security. Social Security is funded primarily through payroll taxes called the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) or Self Employed Contributions Act (SECA). Wage and salary earnings from covered employment, up to an amount determined by law (see tax rate table), are subject to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of List of islands of the United Kingdom, the smaller islands within the British Isles, covering . Northern Ireland shares Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border, a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. It maintains sovereignty over the British Overseas Territories, which are located across various oceans and seas globally. The UK had an estimated population of over 68.2 million people in 2023. The capital and largest city of both England and the UK is London. The cities o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Insurance
National Insurance (NI) is a fundamental component of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It acts as a form of social security, since payment of NI contributions establishes entitlement to certain state benefits for workers and their families. Introduced by the National Insurance Act 1911 and expanded by the Attlee ministry in 1948, the system has been subjected to numerous amendments in succeeding years. Initially, it was a contributory form of insurance against illness and unemployment, and eventually provided retirement pensions and other benefits. Currently, workers pay contributions from the age of sixteen years, until the age they become eligible for the State Pension. Contributions are due from employed people earning at or above a threshold called the Lower Earnings Limit, the value of which is reviewed each year. Self-employed people contribute through a percentage of net profits above a threshold, which is reviewed periodically. Individuals may also make volunt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harberger's Triangle
In economics, deadweight loss is the loss of societal economic welfare due to production/consumption of a good at a quantity where marginal benefit (to society) does not equal marginal cost (to society). In other words, there are either goods being produced despite the cost of doing so being larger than the benefit, or additional goods are not being produced despite the fact that the benefits of their production would be larger than the costs. The deadweight loss is the net benefit that is missed out on. While losses to one entity often lead to gains for another, deadweight loss represents the loss that is not regained by anyone else. This loss is therefore attributed to both producers and consumers. Deadweight loss can also be a measure of lost economic efficiency when the socially optimal quantity of a good or a service is not produced. Non-optimal production can be caused by monopoly pricing in the case of artificial scarcity, a positive or negative externality, a tax or sub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Relative Prices
A relative price is the price of a commodity such as a good or service in terms of another; i.e., the ratio of two prices. A relative price may be expressed in terms of a ratio between the prices of any two goods or the ratio between the price of one good and the price of a market basket of goods (a weighted average of the prices of all other goods available in the market). Microeconomics can be seen as the study of how economic agents react to changes in relative prices, and of how relative prices are affected by the behavior of those agents. The difference and change of relative prices can also reflect the development of productivity. In a demand equation In the demand equation Q=f(P) (in which Q is the number of units of a good or service demanded), P is the relative price of the good or service rather than the nominal price. It is the change in a relative price that prompts a change in the quantity demanded. For example, if all prices rise by 10% there is no change in any ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Substitution Effect
In economics and particularly in consumer choice theory, the substitution effect is one component of the effect of a change in the price of a good upon the amount of that good demanded by a consumer, the other being the income effect. When a good's price decreases, if hypothetically the same "consumption bundle" were to be retained, income would be freed up which could be spent on a combination of more of each of the goods; thus, the new total consumption bundle chosen, compared to the old one, reflects both the effect on freed-up income (the ''income effect''), and the effect of the change on the relative prices of the two goods (the ''substitution effect'', one unit of one good now being traded for a different quantity of the other good, as the ratio of their prices has changed). If income is altered in response to the price change such that a new budget line is drawn passing through the old consumption bundle, but with the slope determined by the new prices and the consum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Distortion (economics)
In signal processing, distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of a signal. In communications and electronics it means the alteration of the waveform of an information-bearing signal, such as an audio signal representing sound or a video signal representing images, in an electronic device or communication channel. Distortion is usually unwanted, and so engineers strive to eliminate or minimize it. In some situations, however, distortion may be desirable. For example, in noise reduction systems like the Dolby system, an audio signal is deliberately distorted in ways that emphasize aspects of the signal that are subject to electrical noise, then it is symmetrically "undistorted" after passing through a noisy communication channel, reducing the noise in the received signal. Distortion is also used as a musical effect, particularly with electric guitars. The addition of noise or other outside signals ( hum, interference) is not considered dis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tax Incidence
In economics, tax incidence or tax burden is the effect of a particular tax on the distribution of economic welfare. Economists distinguish between the entities who ultimately bear the tax burden and those on whom the tax is initially imposed. The tax burden measures the true economic effect of the tax, measured by the difference between real incomes or utilities before and after imposing the tax, and taking into account how the tax causes prices to change. For example, if a 10% tax is imposed on sellers of butter, but the market price rises 8% as a result, most of the tax burden is on buyers, not sellers. The concept of tax incidence was initially brought to economists' attention by the French Physiocrats, in particular François Quesnay, who argued that the incidence of all taxation falls ultimately on landowners and is at the expense of land rent. Tax incidence is said to "fall" upon the group that ultimately bears the burden of, or ultimately suffers a loss from, the tax. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
