These markets figured importantly in the crisis, most notoriously through securities collateralized by subprime mortgages. The story is by now well known. Lenders offered these loans to retail borrowers, often with negligible or simply fraudulent underwriting.
The statutory tax rates on both labour and capital are high; the corporate income tax rate is only lower than that in Germany, where the Government recently announced a cut of 9 percentage points. An excessive level of taxation and the variability and complexity of tax rules discourage investment in physical and human capital and raise the cost of compliance.