Following the release of the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, IAReporter has made an initial reading of the agreement’s investment chapter (Chapter 9) and some notable features of this chapter are discussed in this blog. In broad terms, the agreement’s investment chapter (click to download) looks familiar – particularly in relation to other recent U.S. investment treaties and FTAs. The agreement makes some of the same familiar concessions to public concern that have been…

In April 2015, the President of the Parliament of the newly-elected government of Greece set up a Committee on the Truth about the Public Debt. This was composed of Greek and foreign experts, economists lawyers and others, as well as members of grassroots organisations. All members offered their services pro bono. The object of the Committee was to investigate how Greek foreign debt had accumulated from 1980 to 2014.

In June 2008, Greek public debt was about 252 billion Euros,…

While the central government is expected to earn a tax revenue of Rs 919,842 crore ($148 billion) for the financial year 2015-16, it is expected to forego revenue of Rs 589,285.2 crore ($95 billion) in 2014-15 due to exemptions granted to companies and individual taxpayers. This forgone revenue, or tax benefits, is twice the defence budget allocation of Rs 247,000 crore in 2014-15. Tax-revenue  forgone is a contentious issue–an “incentive” or a “sop”, depending on ideological position–and becoming more so at a time when the…

Wealth is increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The gap between rich and poor is widening between and within countries all over the world, a trend that “menaces vigorous societies” says Will Hutton, the former editor-in-chief of the UK’s Observer newspaper. But such growing inequality does not come about by itself. “It is a proxy”, says Hutton, “for how effectively an elite has constructed institutions that extract value from the rest of society.”

Public-Private Partnerships are one such institution.

PPPs come…