Let’s Move Malta Winter Programme 2026/27 Returns with More Sports and More Opportunities for All
Economy
EconomyVoices
Should we lower corporate taxes?
As many countries continue to compete with one another for foreign investment, cutting corporate income tax rates will almost certainly continue to be an attractive option. A couple of weeks ago, the EU’s Court of Justice ordered Apple to pay €13 billion plus interest back to Ireland after the European Commission had found that Apple had benefited for over two decades from two illegal Irish decisions which had artificially reduced...
EconomyVoices
Degrowth might be good
Those who oppose degrowth, as opposed to continued economic growth, would have people believe that it is equivalent to austerity. Two years ago, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that “we are living through the end of abundance.” Since then, similar warnings have become the order of the day from political and economic leaders who, hobbled by their failure to deliver on their...
EconomyVoices
Invest or die
Mario Monti warned that, unless EU member states substantially upped the game in investment, the bloc is destined to wither. Economic development and capital accumulation are closely interlinked. Capital formation is a key to achieving economic growth, reducing unemployment, ensuring economic stability, and raising the standard of living of people. On the other hand, economic growth...
EconomyVoices
Let there be light out of chaos
Weather forecasts have gotten much more accurate, while economic forecasts have not. In 2006, economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York started worrying about the overheating US housing market. Concerned that the bubble might burst, they used their best model to predict what would happen if house prices dropped by 20 per cent. Not much, was...
EconomyVoices
Tax cuts: why, how, how much, for whom?
Will the announced tax cuts also extend to the rich? I certainly hope not. They do not need, nor do they deserve, another bonus. The Prime Minister recently announced that next year’s Budget will feature tax cuts for all, but particularly for the middle class. He described the proposed cuts as “historic”, though it is not clear what he meant exactly. On another occasion, he mentioned a tax cut...
EconomyVoices
Lower growth = higher income inequality
Why is economic growth so important? With a global economy that is stuck in low gear, the fight against poverty and inequality has become an uphill task. The pandemic had already set back the fight against extreme poverty, which increased after decades of decline, while the long-term decline in...
EconomyVoices
Go and be productive
It is clear that a reset of the Government’s economic policy is required away from recurrent expenditure and crude subsidies. During a World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, corporate chief executives predicted that advances in AI would enable “productivity on steroids”. This was after the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. declared in a 2023 report that “Generative AI...
EconomyVoices
Compete we must
Economic growth is still essential, but we must ensure it fosters the social and environmental well-being we desire. Prime Minister Robert Abela told the European Council meeting in June that the Europan Union should continue prioritising competitiveness in order to harness the full potential of the Single Market. In particular, he labelled small and medium-sized enterprises...
EconomyEuropean UnionVoices
Schumpeter in Malta
Europe urgently needs economic policies which support investment and fair pay rather than more austerity. The European Commission’s Spring 2024 Economic Forecast published recently predicts economic growth will be slow because “investment growth appears to be softening” and is “expected to pick up only gradually”. In particular, it highlights investment in housing and...
Camille Franke's BlogEconomy
Economic black hole
We know it’s there and how big it is, but very little about what’s really happening in detail. Some call it the Black Economy; others prefer to use a less critical phrase like the Informal Economy. Whatever term you use, it concerns a segment of a country’s economic activity that is derived from sources that fall outside of the country’s rules and...
Economy
Taking a peek at peaq
The Maltese government has been working to ensure that the benefits of the crypto industry are distributed more evenly throughout the population. A blockchain token co-founded by Maltese tech entrepreneur Max Thake has raised €20 million on CoinList ̶ the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) platform. That figure pertains to just six per cent of the total tokens available on the peaq network – a global, decentralised...
EconomyStories
Swotting and sweating it out
We have an abundance of vision statements, strategy documents, and action plans, which we need to implement. The recent country report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided an unbiased assessment of Malta’s economic performance in 2023 and complements that carried out by the European Commission. The Fund’s executive Board endorsed a report by its team which...