The tax Tobin , suggested in 1972 by the prize winner of the “" Nobel Prize of économie"” James Tobin, consists of a tax on the international monetary transactions in order to désinciter with the Spéculation. The selected rate would be weak, of 0,05  % with 1  %. The idea of professor Tobin knew a certain passion since the Mexican crisis of 1992-1994. The project was evoked within UNO and of the G7 of Halifax in 1995. Robert Mundell argued that would constitute a powerful incentive with the installation of common currencies like the Euro.

Since its foundation in 1998, association ATTAC defends inter alia the idea of the introduction of this tax and takes part in the movement altermondialist. It since was established in much country, and proposes analyzes studying the practical possibility of the installation of the tax.

In the United States there exists also association Tobin Tax Initiative

James Tobin made the following comment in an interview with the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel reproduced by the newspaper Le Monde on September 8th, 2001: “I appreciate the interest which one carries to my idea, but much from these praises do not come from where it is necessary. I am economist and, like the majority of the economists, I defend free trade. Moreover, I support Fund international currency (FMI), the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO), all it with what these movements are caught some. My name is diverted. ”

Other economists, like Joseph E. Stiglitz, support the principle of such a tax.

Its origin

The agreements of Bretton Woods signed in 1944 were ratified by 44 countries. They aimed at restoring the world monetary system put at evil following the Second world war. The the IMF and the the World Bank were created following these agreements.

The system of Bretton Woods collapsed at the end of the years 1960, creating, according to the defenders of the tax Tobin, an excessive instability of the world money market which would be due to the speculation.

Principles

The plate and the rate would be identical in all the countries. Collected and managed by each government, the funds collected would be then transferred at an organization managed by the the IMF, the the World Bank or an independent organism placed under the control of UNO. The sums thus collected would be redistributed firstly with the least advanced countries.

The Tobin tax would thus have two advantages according to its defenders: to slow down the speculation and to support the development. The low level would not discourage the not-speculative exchanges.

At present, it is more and more associated with the concept developed by the professor Spahn and takes the name of Tobin-Spahn tax. This one is a tax on double level: the first level is a low level applicable to the financial affairs as long as those remain within the limits of an average agreed upon, the second level is an high rate (about 80%) which applies automatically in the event of instability financière.
The rate of the first level, about the hundredth of pourcent, is too weak to block the productive transactions but constitutes already a brake with the speculative transactions. Those, indeed, are characterized by very fast and very many swaps with very weak profit margins. It is the repetition of these exchanges on a short amount of time which makes it possible to accumulate important benefit. The Tobin tax applying to each transaction would burden in an important way the final benefit of the speculator.

Criticisms

Several critics are formulated against the Tobin tax.

  • In spite of its very low rate, it would constitute a brake with the exchanges in general, since it would be also taken on transactions of not-speculative payment and transfer, because of the companies functioning in network, and of the constraints of optimization of treasury in real-time.

  • It would accentuate the Volatilité courses of the currencies by decreasing the transactions on the markets and while them making thus less liquid.

  • It would not make it possible to avoid the movements of capital of large scales, such as those which caused the crises Asian and Russian, its rate not being enough high to be dissuasive.

  • It would be to a certain extent incompatible with the Bank secrecy , because it requires the traceability of the financial affairs. There would be thus administrative difficulties to found this system.

  • It should be installation with global scales or continental, which implies an agreement difficult to obtain: an action isolated from some countries would have negative effects on their economy.

  • It would constitute a source of profit for the establishments practitioner the financial Ingénierie, able to develop systems of Compensation and contracts Dérivé S countering the effects of this measurement. As illustration, the creation of the market of the Eurodollar in the Années 1970 had circumvented the lawful obstacles with replacement assets in external dollars in the United States, for the greatest profit of the money markets of London and Luxembourg.

Empirical results on the effectiveness of the " tax Tobin"

The vast majority of the financial economists always disputed causality between a “Tobin tax” and a greater price stability financial. They take as example the case of the real estate markets, which are characterized by very high costs of transactions but have, nevertheless, a great volatility of the prices. However, this causality between the prices of transactions and their volatility is not well established until recently.

For the ten last years, financial economists have criticized the assumption of stabilization expressed by Tobin. Several studies based on exogenic changes of the structure of the markets, following new regulations, showed, according to these economists, that increases in price of transaction involve a greater instability systematically (for example Ronen and Weaver (2001), Bessembinder (2001), Bessembinder and Rath (2002)). The most recent study by Hau (2006), The Role off Transaction Costs for Financial Volatility: Obviousness from the Paris Stock Exchange , appeared in the " Newspaper off European Economic Association" (June 2006), summarizes:

" The data analysis in panel makes it possible to conclude with a great statistical certainty that an increase in the costs of the transactions by 20% (due to changes of minimal variations of quotation at the Bourse de Paris) implies an increase in volatility (measured by “arranges” like difference between maximum and minimal value on an interval in one hour) by more than 30%. In conclusion, an increase in the costs of transactions in general and a “Tobin tax” in particular must be regarded as destabilizing for prices financiers."

A synthesis (in English) of the scientific literature is also in the same article (Hau (2006)).

Favorable countries

The France, the Finland, the Belgium, the Germany, the India and the Australia already decided favorably. But only France (in November 2001) and Belgium (in July 2004) voted a law specifying that a tax of the Tobin type would come into effect when she would have been voted in all the countries of the euro area. Later, the presidents Brazilian (Lula) and French (Chirac) proposed in the place a tax on the sales of weapons and the plane tickets to finance the development of the countries of the South.

Position of the European Union

The European Union is had a presentiment of for the first installation of the tax, of the laws voted by national parliaments specify that it will enter pursuant to that all the countries of the euro area will have registered it in their right.

January 20th, 2000, at the European Parliament, was voted on a resolution - signed by the groups PSE (socialist), Green-ALE, FORD (Unified left, where in particular the elected officials of the PCF and LCR sit) and ELDR (liberal), joined by two members pasquaïens of the group UEN - requiring of the European commission to present in the six months a report/ratio on the feasibility of the Tobin tax. Legally, this legislative initiative of the European Parliament rested on article 192 EC (article 332 in the TCE) reinforced by the inter-institutional agreement " Diary 2000 - better légiférer" between the Commission and the European Parliament (see the European Parliament #Pouvoirs and functions).

Finally, the subjected text was pushed back with a very narrow majority (229 votes against 223) by the liberal line (as well as the British deputies of the Ploughing).

Among the votes of the French deputies:

  • several deputies of the PCF (whose Robert Hue) or Socialists did not take share with the vote;
  • those of the EPP and the villierists voted against; Francois Bayrou, Alain Lamassoure, William Abitbol and Charles Pasqua voted for.
  • the trotskists abstained partly from (Alain Krivine) or voted against (Arlette Laguiller) with the reason which it was not there “to improve capitalism”. The Communist revolutionary league had abstained from, under the pretext that the starting text which they had subjected to the vote having been emptied, by amendments of Charles Pasqua inter alia, of very contained, and to final, summarizing itself only with one feasibility study on this tax, while registering for objective " the stabilization" and the perenniality of the globalized financial markets (article 2).

Favorable personalities

  • James Tobin

    • On the page of James Tobin it is specified that it declared that these theories had been badly included/understood. However, being at the origin of this tax, it appears peremptory to me to classify it in the personalities opposed without arguing or at least justifying

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    External bonds

    • JEEA article by Prof Hau

    • Site favorable to the tax
    • Article criticizes Response
    • Exposé on the tax Tobin
    • ATTAC, an association of promotion of the tax Tobin
    • Interview of James Tobin by the Mail of UNESCO

    In connection with the Tobin resolution of the European Parliament

    • Article justifying the vote of LO against the resolution of January 20th, 2000
    • Tax of Tobin: the stab in the back and: answers of Alain Lipietz
    • Position of the office of ATTAC
    • the explanation of vote of the LCR

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