Case Centre resources

In the forty years to 2019, the level and sources of taxes in OECD countries had remained roughly constant. However, this apparent stability had concealed serious threats to the nature of public finance. First, public expenditures had grown over that same period, particularly following the 2008-09 global financial crisis. Second, traditional sources of taxation, namely taxes on labour income and consumption, which together accounted for about 85% of tax revenue, were coming under threat by a number of emerging technological and social phenomena, including advancements in job-replacing automation; a growing gig economy; greater cross-border e-commerce; an ageing population; and an increasing concentration of wealth. All of these changes suggested the need for a fundamental redesign of the tax system. 

This background note, written for non-tax experts, explores how these phenomena challenge the legacy approaches used to tax labour and capital. It discusses ways to rethink tax systems for the 2020s and beyond, with a particular look at two bold, yet controversial, new policy ideas: an automation tax and a tax on global wealth.

In 2017, healthcare in the United States was regulated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA mandated all individuals to have health insurance or pay a penalty. While millions of people across the United States gained health insurance as a result of the ACA, the insurance market in many states was tenuous. Further, many Americans viewed the ACA as an unnecessary government intrusion on individual rights.

In the context of a fictional US state, this case explores the factors that contributed to the failure of the healthcare market. It explores new insights derived from behavioural economics to increase consumer choice, boost coverage, and lower overall costs of healthcare.

Co-authored with Karen Croxson

The Vatican Bank was central to the global mission of the Catholic Church, helping move money where it was most needed to meet the Church’s objectives. The bank largely operated outside the global financial regulatory system. This arrangement had historically enabled the Church to operate where others could not, for instance to support the pro-democracy Solidarność (solidarity) movement in communist Poland.

In recent years, however, the bank’s culture of secrecy had gained notoriety for enabling financial irregularities. Rene Bruelhart, a Swiss lawyer who had previously helped reform Lichtenstein’s banking system, was appointed in 2012 as director of the Financial Information Authority (the Vatican’s financial regulator) to address the concerns and scandals at the Vatican Bank. As a relative outsider to the tradition-bound Vatican, Bruelhart considered his options. How broadly or narrowly should he define his objectives? How should he pace his reform in a setting that was resistant to external interference? How could he build a constructive dialogue with both internal and external stakeholders?