Multinational firms, Intellectual property and taxation

10  October 2013    4:00 pm CEST

Rachel Griffith, President of the European Economic Association and Research Director, Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)

Venue

Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Otto-Wagner-Platz 3, 1090 Vienna, 'Kassensaal' (first floor).
Registration R.S.V.P. by Thursday, October 1, 2013, by fax (+43-1-404 20-04-6697) or by e-mail to Karin.Weiss@oenb.at.

Description

The conference ‘Europe in a post-crisis world’ will consist of four sessions:

  • Political ramifications of the EU crisis
  • Longer-term consequences of the crisis for the EU
  • Consequences for Europe's periphery and the European neighbourhood
  • Europe's position in the global economy - longer-term scenarios

Most countries operate a variant of a source-based tax system, under which they attempt to tax profits that arise in their jurisdiction. Economies have become more open, with considerably more trade and movement of goods, services and people across national borders. This makes it more difficult to delineate a clear split of taxable profits across tax jurisdictions, and gives firms the opportunity to use their international structures to avoid tax. In addition, a much greater share of income is now generated from investments in intangible assets, which often have no clear geographical location and are harder to value than tangible assets.

In her talk, Professor Griffith will discuss the main policy choices on the table and how these square up with what we know from the theoretical literature about the optimal design of corporate income tax systems.

Professor Griffith was recently elected President of the European Economic Association. She is Joint Managing Editor of the Economic Journal, and Section Chair of Economics and Economic History at the British Academy. She currently holds an ERC Advanced Grant on "Microeconomic Analysis of Prices, Food and Nutrition" and is one of the Directors of the ESRC Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. She has been teaching economics at the University of Manchester since 2010, and from 2003 to 2010 she was Professor at the Department of Economics at University College London. She served as Senior Economist at the Competition Commission from 2001 to 2002.

Rachel Griffith is the author of numerous articles and book contributions and has published extensively in leading economic journals, including the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Economic Perspectives and The Economic Journal. Her research interests are wide ranging and include most aspects of public policy and microeconomics; she particularly works on topics in industrial organization, public policy, corporation taxation, innovation, productivity, and competition policy.

Programme

Welcome
Doris Ritzberger-Grünwald
Director, Economic Analysis and Research Department
Oesterreichische Nationalbank

Presentation
Rachel Griffith

Chair
Michael Landesmann
Scientific Director
The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw)

The Global Economy Lecture is jointly organized by the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) and The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw).


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