Budget and Taxes

*  BusinessWorld  Jan. 23, 2023. ------------ Economics is the study of the proper allocation of limited resources given unlimited wants. Development economics is a branch of economics that focuses on developing countries’ social, economic, and fiscal allocation of resources. The University of the Philippines School of Economics (UPSE) has three academic programs — undergraduate, MA, and PhD — and the Program in Development Economics (PDE). The last was created in the mid-1960s and designed for mid-level technical staff of various government agencies. It is applied economics with theoretical background like marginal cost curves, production possibility frontier, etc. After finishing my AB Economics in UPSE in the 1980s, I went back to the school in the ’90s to study PDE when I was still working at the House of Representatives. Here are among the important themes in the course that I can remember and our teachers then. 1. In macroeconomics: GDP and consumption formula.  GDP or gross dome

* BusinessWorld , January 5, 2023. ----------- The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that the December 2022 inflation rate was 8.1%. It is the peak rate for 2022 and also the highest since 2008. As of today, only a few countries in the top 50 largest economies in the world have reported their December 2022 inflation data. In Table 1, I list five countries each in Europe and Asia. Europe has been severely affected mainly because of high energy prices. Germany, the largest economy in Europe and fourth largest in the world, experienced its highest inflation in 70 years. Switzerland, which has the lowest inflation in Europe, still experienced 29-years high price increases. It seems that the series of interest rate hikes by central banks and the monetary authorities of many governments have succeeded in causing demand destruction, where consumers were forced to cut down their spending on many items, which pulled down overall inflation rates in the latter months of 2022. In the

BusinessWorld , Jan. 2, 2023. -------------- Here is this column’s assessment of the important trade and investment stories of the past year, five global and five national. .... 5. Global illicit trade was estimated at more than $2 trillion a year The number is an UNCTAD estimate. There is a huge diversion in commerce from legal and registered products to illegal ones, leading to lower tax revenues for governments that led them to raise taxes elsewhere. In September, it held the second UNCTAD Illicit Trade Forum in Geneva, in partnership with the Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade (TRACIT). The goal was to highlight initiatives and cooperation to fight this criminal activity.... 7. High incidence of illicit trade especially in tobacco See a recent report in  BusinessWorld , “Gov’t losing P250B in revenues due to illicit trade” (Dec. 14) quoting Jesus L. Arranza, the chairman of both Fight IT (Illicit Trade) and the Federation of Philippine Industries. He estimates that ciga