STOREPgrants 2017, selection results

In July 2016, STOREP – Associazione Italiana per la Storia dell’Economia Politica – has launched two grants (2,000 EUR each, funded from the budget), called “STOREPgrants”, for innovative small-scale research projects by STOREP members in the history of political economy, the history of economic thought, and the history of economics, or exploring economic issues on an interdisciplinary basis, or, finally, explicitly promoting heterodox approaches to economic theory.

The Selection Committee, composed of three members nominated by the Executive Committee (Maria Cristina Marcuzzo, Harald Hagemann and Andrea Salanti) have scrutinized submitted proposals on the bases of three main criteria: a) relevance, originality and coherence of the proposal with STOREP’s aims as institution promoting and enhancing the interest towards the history of economics and economic thought; b) standing of the proponent (expertise, reputation), and c) feasibility of the project, also with reference to the time schedule for completion.

The winning recipient of a STOREPgrant award of 2,000 EUR is Paolo Silvestri, Università di Torino, with the project: “Theories of Tax Justice: Between Exchange and Gift”. Here below is a brief outline of the research:

“Why should we pay taxes? How should we share burdens and benefits of taxation? The endless debates on the two most common and enduring theories of tax justice – benefit-received principle and ability-to-pay principle – can be regarded as a continuous attempt to find satisfactory and shareable answers to these questions. The main objective of the present research is to re-read the problem of tax justice through the lens of reciprocity and, accordingly, to provide new answers to these old questions. I will show: a) that it is possible and useful to re-read the unresolved tension between the two main theories of tax justice with the categories of reciprocity, namely as a problem of the distinction between exchange and gift, but without necessarily opposing one to the other, or re-proposing the self-interest / altruism dichotomy; b) that it is possible and necessary to understand taxation also as a form of gift; c) how the gift may help us understand and re-articulate the conflicting demands (equality Vs freedom) for tax justice”.

Applying rules explicitly stated in the call for submissions, the Selection Committee also decided to retain the amount available for a second STOREPgrant award for the next annual grants round.