On The General Relativity Of Fiscal Language
- Topics:
- Taxes
- Tags:
- Finance,
- Financial Planning,
- Free Trade,
- Illusion,
- Measure,
- National Bureau Of Economic Research,
- Operational Accounting,
- Payment,
- Taxes
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Overview: A century ago, everyone thought time and distance were well defined physical concepts. But neither proved absolute. Instead, measures/reports of time and distance were found to depend on one's reference point, specifically one's direction and speed of travel, making the apparent physical reality, in Einstein's words, "Merely an illusion." Like time and distance, standard fiscal measures, including deficits, taxes, and transfer payments, depend on one's reference point/reporting procedure/language/labels. As such, they too represent numbers in search of concepts that provide the illusion of meaning where none exists. This paper provides a general proof that standard fiscal measures, including the deficit, taxes, and transfer payments, are economically ill-defined. Instead these measures reflect the arbitrary labeling of underlying fiscal conditions.
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Format: PDF | Size: 181KB | Date: Jun 2006 | Pages: 18




