Truth-in-taxation measures, which are intended to serve taxpayers, have failed to constrain the property tax burden in Texas, write Jennifer Rabb and Lebena Varghese of the McNair Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth. They argue that it is incumbent upon the government to make tax rate notices clear, relevant and above all truthful.
The authors show that border barriers can have unintended but important biological consequences for biodiversity by, for instance, inducing changes to the environment and reducing genetic diversity.
The authors analyze how the AKP and other Islamist parties in Turkey have fared in municipal governance and whether municipalities governed by Islamist mayors promote and Islamic political identity.
In March 2013, Houston was awarded one of five inaugural Mayor’s Challenge Prizes from Bloomberg Philanthropies for its innovative proposal “One Bin for All.” A $1 million prize was given to Houston to be used to implement a workable process utilizing cutting-edge technology to separate trash from recyclables, allowing residents to discard all materials — including kitchen garbage and other organics — in one bin and accomplish all separation and processing at a mechanical biological treatment with advanced resource recovery facility. Under the proposed One Bin plan, the city has set an initial goal of diverting 55 percent of municipal waste away from landfills, eventually increasing that to 75 percent. If Houston can succeed in pulling off this project, it will set a new standard in waste disposal that will revolutionize the industry for years to come.
A new “Make in India” campaign to “transform India into a global manufacturing hub” aims to use manufacturing as a vehicle for job growth. Is this strategy realistic? This paper helps answer the question by describing the job growth potential of the Indian economy. Formal-sector manufacturing demonstrates the most potential for job growth under a more supportive policy regime. The paper models future employment paths for India for the next 20 years. Assuming sufficient reforms to generate East Asia-style manufacturing growth, the impact on employment and output is substantial, even if the campaign target of 100 million new manufacturing jobs remains difficult to achieve. The paper then describes a set of reforms sufficient to unleash such a manufacturing growth boom.
