This is a joint post with Owen Barder.
In January, David Cameron nailed his colours to the mast with a speech in Davos that set out the three Ts agenda for the UK’s chairing of the June G8 meeting: taxes, trade and transparency. Since then, there has been much discussion of how serious the agenda is and what the G8 can actually deliver.
The day before we recorded this Wonkcast news broke of an agreement between the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain to pilot “multilateral automatic tax information exchange.” My guest, research fellow Alex Cobham, explains why this is so important, why financial secrecy and international tax law seem suddenly to be at the top of the global economic policy agenda—and why this could be especially good news for developing countries.
News broke on April 9th of agreement between the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain to pilot “multilateral automatic tax information exchange.” In France, President Hollande went further – announcing a draft law aimed at ‘moralising’ French public life, as former budget minister Jerome Cahuzac was expelled from the governing party for repeatedly denying the existence of his Swiss bank account.
Richard Manning, a highly respected former chair of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) says in the FT that the OECD is "encouraging OECD finance ministries to get away with murder as they seek to massage reported aid upwards at minimum cost."
I and all my colleagues at the Center for Global Development (CGD) are thrilled with the announcement today that CGD senior fellow, Michael Clemens, has won this year’s Royal Economic Society prize - a prize awarded annually to the author(s) of the best non-solicited paper published in The Economic Journal
Owen Barder is sceptical about a proposed new public-private partnership to tackle hunger.
An obscure reference to reforming the taxation of multinationals in the UK budget speech might be more important for developing countries than the big increase in aid that was announced at the same time. Mandatory ‘combined reporting’ by multinationals could enable countries to tax multinationals properly.
Bob Geldof is the latest guest on Development Drums talking about about his work in development over three decades. Beware: the language is colourfully and characteristically explicit in places. You can listen to the 35 minute version here, or listen to the entire extended interview.
The budget presented today by Britain's ruling coalition confirmed that the UK will meet the 0.7% target on foreign assistance in 2013. This means that Britain will join Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg and Denmark as a member of the small club of countries which meet the UN target - first agreed in 1970 - of spending 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) on Official Development Assistance (ODA).
Aaron Swartz, who died on January 11th, worked and fought for key freedoms of our time: the right to information, to share knowledge and ideas, and to speak freely.