Financial Transparency Coalition

Broadly speaking, there are two reasons to tax. There are taxes intended to raise revenue. And there are taxes intended to dissuade a certain behavior, also called “sin taxes.” The classic example of a tax to dissuade behavior is the cigarette tax. It’s broad worldwide and considered quite effective, particularly among cigarette companies. In fact, a researcher from MIT calculated that the 1982-83 rounds of price increases in the U.S. resulted in two million fewer adult smokers and 600,000 fewer teenage smokers. But often the line between these two types of taxes is blurred because...

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “90% of statistics are made up on the spot” or “You can prove anything with statistics.” To some extent it’s true. Unlike other forms of math, a problem in statistics doesn’t always yield a single answer. Subjective isn’t exactly the right word to describe the science, but it is true that it’s by no means objective like calculus. The problem with statistics, and even more specifically the form of statistics applied to economics, also called econometrics, is that even when we try our best, with the very best intentions of objectivity,...

Almost exactly one year ago, just before sunset, the strongest earthquake to hit the region in over 200 years struck Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, just outside the capital city, Port-au-Prince. Homes, schools, and government buildings were reduced to rubble. An estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people died and the total damages are estimated between $8 and $14 billion. That’s about 110% of Haiti’s GDP. In 2008 a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck Sichuan Providence in Western China, killing about 70,000 people. A number of buildings collapsed, including a three-story school, which killed 127 students. ...

Sudan has been embroiled in two civil wars for most of the 55 years it has existed as an independent state. In the 1980s and 1990s Sudan witnessed four million displacements and two million deaths as a direct result of this conflict. Islamic-oriented military regimes have ruled Sudan since independence, which is large part attributable to the religious demographics. Of Sudan’s sizeable population of over 44 million inhabitants, seventy percent identifies as Sunni Muslim, twenty-five with indigenous beliefs, and five percent as Christian. Muslims are concentrated in Northern Sudan, while Christians mostly occupy the South. This...