Nobel Laureate Calls for Abolishing Corporate Income Tax

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Nobel Laureate Calls for Abolishing Corporate Income Tax

Saying the corporate income tax inhibits economic growth, Dr. Robert A. Mundell, the 1999 Nobel Laureate for Economics, called for its elimination as a way to spark the flagging economy.

"Abolishing the corporate income tax would be a good move," he said. "The stock market would boom ahead and there would be a big upsurge in investment."

Speaking at Polytechnic's Fifth Annual Lynford Lecture, Mundell, professor of economics at Columbia University, declared that the economy needs a boost and tax reform is necessary. "Corporate profits," he said, "are the beacon that makes the economy run."

In his lecture, Emerging Domestic and Global Economic Issues, Mundell, who conceived the idea for creating the Euro, a single European

Dr. Robert A. Mundell, the 1999 Nobel Laureate for Economics.

currency, noted that the current slow down in the economy may last longer than expected. "Corporate profits drive capital investment," he said. "It's a vicious circle."

The Lynford Lecture is sponsored by Jeffrey H. Lynford, chairman of Wellsford Real Properties Inc. and a Polytechnic trustee, and his wife, Tondra, to present the insights of outstanding scientists and mathematicians to a wide audience. Polytechnic's Institute for Mathematics and Supercomputing (IMAS), led by the brother mathematicians Drs. David and Gregory Chudnovsky, cosponsor the lecture.

Before the lecture, Lynford told the more than 200 people in the University's Dibner Auditorium that a supercomputer, designed by the Chudnovskys, will be housed in a new laboratory at Polytechnic. "The computer," he said, "will be used to help the Chudnovskys design a powerful new chip that will be the heart of the next generation of IBM's Blue GeneCyclops supercomputers.

The Lynford Lecture was held at Polytechnic University's MetroTech campus in downtown Brooklyn on October 8th.