Rosenzweig Presents Stateless Public Goods Today At San Diego

Adam Rosenzweig (Washington University) presents Stateless Public Goods at San Diego today as part of its Tax Law Speaker Series hosted by Michelle Layser:

The rise of the digital economy has proven to be one of the most significant events in modern economic history, not only due to its potential for explosive economic growth but also for the potential to improve the quality of life for billions of people around the world. At the same time, the digital economy has presented some of the most significant challenges to the world’s global tax and regulatory institutions. This has been reflected in two separate parallel global initiatives: (1) the OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) global tax reform project and (2) the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals global development project. While at first glance, these two projects may appear to have little in common, the link between them is the unique challenge presented by the emerging global digital economy. The BEPS project has identified the global digital economy as the most significant opportunity to tap into previously uncollected sources of revenue in the world, while the UN has identified global digital public goods (GDPGs) as the single most powerful tool to combat global poverty. 

From this perspective, a unique opportunity emerges – to use the new revenue collected from the global digital economy under BEPS project to fund investments in GDPGs. This article will propose a unique and novel way to do so - the “GDPG Trust Fund” – which will combine the best aspects of the BEPS project to effectively impose tax on the global digital economy with the best aspects of the SDG project to cut global poverty by up to half by 2030.

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