Changes to U.S. tax law enacted during 2003-2004 are now neatly summarized in a new 591-pp. document issued by the Joint Committee on Taxation of the U.S. Congress. That’s just one of the many useful documents available at the site; other recent entries summarize various aspects of the "Energy Policy Tax Incentives Act" just passed by the Senate on June 28.

     The last week in June saw the release by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) of two data-filled reports of interest to the corporate real estate community.

     The 2005 Employment Outlook states that the OECD’s 30 member countries "will still have around 36 million job-seekers in 2006 (or 6.4 percent of the labor force), compared with 37 million in 2004 (or 6.7 percent of the labor force): about 35 percent of people of working age are without a job, and there are few signs of a significant improvement in the next two years." However, the report goes on to say, "Claims that globalization is the main cause of the labor market problems experienced by OECD countries are exaggerated."

     Meanwhile, "Trends and Recent Developments in Foreign Direct Investment" says, "outflows from the United States reached US$252 billion in 2004 — up from US$141 billion in 2003 to hit an all-time record." Inward investment totals in France and Germany fell sharply, though much of that decline was traceable to transaction activity between foreign-invested enterprises and their foreign mother companies. Meanwhile, South America, India and Russia continued to show strong gains in attracting FDI.

     Those figures are supported by a report released 10 days earlier by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, which concentrated on U.S. manufacturers’ FDI activity. According to the report, total foreign direct investment by U.S. manufacturers stood at $54 billion in 2004, up from $28 billion in 2003. Of the 226 manufacturers surveyed by Deloitte, more than 38 percent plan to expand in China over the next three years, while only 12.3 per cent plan to do so in Western Europe.

     More than 550 companies and associations have signed on to a letter asking the U.S. Congress to make the R&D tax credit permanent. "R&D keeps U.S. manufacturing and service sector companies out in front of lower-cost foreign competitors by boosting productivity and innovation," said Monica McGuire, senior policy director for taxation for the National Association of Manufacturers. "In fact, a growing number of countries recognize how important R&D spending is to future economic growth and are now offering more generous R&D tax incentives than the U.S. If we don't keep pace, more and more R&D will be performed in other countries and that could hurt job creation here at home." She went on to urge Congress to "make the credit permanent, increase the Alternative Incremental Credit (AIRC) rates, and provide an alternative simplified credit calculation.

Brisbane, Australia

     Corporations in growth mode in the South Pacific may want to pay special heed to a newly posted report, "Productivity Growth in Australian Manufacturing," from that country’s National Office for the Information Economy. Available at the frequently useful United Nations Online Network in Public Administration and Finance (UNPAN), the 100-pp. document, issued in 2004, contains detailed data on everything from technology-assisted manufacturing to decreased lost days due to industrial disputes.

     The Southern Workforce Index recently published by the Southern Growth Policies Board looks at 15 atypical indicators that it says characterize the region’s present and future labor pool, including percent of work force in at-risk occupations, the reading habits of 8th-graders and Hispanic high school graduation rates. The organization cautions that the index "is not designed to play states off against each other," but readers may nevertheless assess the charts for themselves.

     Across the pond, a new report from Cambridge Econometrics looks at the growth prospects for over 1,200 regions and 46 major metros in Europe. Among its findings: Employment growth from 2005-2009 is expected to be strongest in Dublin, Helsinki, Budapest, Warsaw and Amsterdam, in that order. Meanwhile, output growth is forecast to be strongest in Warsaw, Moscow, Prague, Budapest and Helsinki. The full report is published in collaboration with the European Economic Research Consortium (ERECO), a group of European economic institutes set up in 1990.