Re-Define produces solutions to current and long-term public challenges and helps policy makers implement them
Financial Transaction Taxes
Re-Define Managing Director Sony Kapoor is interviewed by Euractiv.com
Ex-Lehman banker says EU should crack down on big banks
Tue, 2010-02-09 11:49
Instead of addressing fundamental issues like the role of finance, politicians seem stuck in assuaging public anger, argues Sony Kapoor, manager of the international think-tank Re-Define, in an interview with EurActiv.
Re-Define Testimony at European Parliament Hearings on Financial Transaction Taxes
Please click below to see an archived webcast of the European Parliament Testimony of Re-Define Managing Director Sony Kapoor on Financial Transaction Taxes. This hearing was conducted by the full ECON committee on the 2nd of December 2009.
Sony Kapoor European Parliament Testimony on Financial Transaction Taxes
For the speech please look at time stamp 16:20:10 to 16:27:20 and for answers to MEP questions please look at time stamp 17:01:20 to 17:09:00.
A copy of the submitted written Testimony of Mr Kapoor will be available both here and on the European Parliament website on Monday the 7th of December.
Other details of the hearing can be accessed here.
Old but Relevant Research Reports and Blogs from Re-Define and its members on Financial Transaction Taxes
Vox EU Blog: http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/4079
Taking the Next Step – Implementing a Currency Transaction Levy, Hillman, Kapoor & Spratt, Norwegian Government, 2007 : http://www.innovativefinance-oslo.no/pop.cfm?FuseAction=Doc&pAction=View...
Why financial transaction taxes (tobin taxes) have finally come of age!
Proponents of the financial transaction taxes (FTT) are happy that the tax is in the news again. However they can’t help but wonder if it is just another false dawn. It is not.
The financial crisis, the biggest in living memory, has massively titled the political and financial landscape in a direction that makes such taxes not just more desirable also much easier to implement.
Keynes was an early proponent of FTTs and the idea got a new lease of life when James Tobin extended it to currency markets. The Asian crisis helped revive the discussion and after falling off the agenda yet again the idea was brought back to life as a potential source of revenue for funding development. Each time it died a slow death. The opponents of FTTs won those battles but are about to lose the war. Here is why.
Revisiting the Tobin Tax - Financial Transaction Taxes for Burden Sharing and as Regulatory Tools
Tobin taxes are back in circulation again. The financial crisis has highlighted the fundamental problems of financial stability as well as the costs associated with bailouts of the financial sector.
Interestingly the family of tobin taxes, better known as financial transaction taxes ot security transaction taxes are good tools which can help tackle both of these problems. Their potential and role in helping provide solutions to the challenges confronting us are discussed briefly in this policy note here. This note which was written a while back will be followed by a Re-Define Policy Paper out next week.
Exponentially expanded financial markets
It is widely known that turnover in financial markets (the total value of financial instruments traded every year) has grown exponentially. This has been the case for almost all financial markets both on-exchange such as stock markets and off-exchange such as OTC derivate markets.
Currency market turnover for example rose from about $4 trillion in the 70s to $40 trillion in the 80s to more than $500 trillion now. Turnover in equity markets registered a seven fold increase between 1993 and 2005 to about $51 trillion and the wealth held in the global bond market is more than $60 trillion now with turnover substantially higher. The notional value of OTC credit default swaps, just a single kind of derivate, rose to more than $60 trillion from almost nothing a decade ago.
