SDI and Average Annual Productivity Growth in North America, "Old" Europe, and Oceania, 1980-2006

Source: OECD Factbook 2008. http://titania.sourceoecd.org/vl=4937052/cl=16/nw=1/rpsv/factbook/

SDI and Intergenerational Mobility

The only countries for which the right data were available were:

UK {0.502, 0.001}
USA {0.300, 0.087}
France {0.623, 0.258}
Germany {0.482, 0.515}
Sweden {0.821, 0.658}
Canada {0.456, 0.887}
Finland {0.681, 0.915}
Norway {0.687, 0.944}
Denmark {0.784, 1.001}

x = SDI 2.0
y = Intergenerational Mobility (Scaled)

Source: http://www.economicmobility.org/assets/pdfs/EMP_American_Dream.pdf, p. 9.

Note: scaled scores are derived from each country's relative mobility statistic (i.e., the extent to which one's parents earnings predict one's own earnings). The scaling formula is [(country's statistic - minimum statistic)/(maximum statistic - minimum statistic) + 0.001]. 0.001 is added to each scaled score to avoid scores of zero, which screw up the nonlinear regression equations.

Tax Burden and Productivity

SDI and Productivity

2007 International Rankings, GDP per hour worked

"Red" States = "Welfare Queen" States

Source: Tax Foundation, http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html

Note: Ratios are for 2005. I excluded DC, Virginia, and Maryland due to their abnormally large amounts of Federal spending due to the location of the Federal government.

Presidential Tax Plans

Distributional Analysis


Revenue and Deficit Analysis