Hosted by Tomas Hult, this segment of the globalEDGE Business Beat is an interview with Kirt Butler. Dr. Butler is a faculty in the Department of Finance and Director of Study Abroad for the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University, where he teaches international finance. He is author of Multinational Finance: Evaluating the Opportunities, Costs, and Risks of Multinational Operations.

Tomas Hult is Professor and Byington Endowed Chair in the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University.

Broadly, the U.S. Congress approved a new tax plan in December 2017 that reduces the corporate tax rate to 21 percent, from the current 35 percent. Kirt shares his views regarding financial and economic implications that this tax cut has for corporations.

At the same time, individuals would also see tax cuts, including a top rate of 37 percent, down from 39.6 percent. Tomas and Kirt dialogue about the implications of the individual tax rates for consumer spending and the global economy.

They also discuss the stock market in the U.S. which went up some 25 percent in 2017. This is an unheard of increase in just one year. Kirt has some astute takeaways related to this stock market increase for corporations and global financial markets.