Going for the Wallet? Rule-of-Law Conditionality in the Next EU Multiannual Financial Framework

EU funds that promote economic convergence will hardly reach their objective in countries sliding toward a system that lacks effective checks and balances.The idea of financially sanctioning EU Member States has been advocated for some time and took shape concretely in May 2018. The European Commission presented a draft regulation to sanction Member States with “generalised deficiencies” in the rule of law, which was presented together with a comprehensive proposal for the next MFF.     

Implications of the US Tax Reform for Transatlantic FDI

On 22 December 2017 President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This corporate tax reform can be considered the most significant amendment of the US corporate tax code since 1986. Besides the reduction of the corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act entails features like a switch from worldwide income taxation to territorial taxation, as well as immediate deductions for certain assets. This leads to a substantial improvement for the US in global tax competition. In this paper, we analyse the effects of the US tax reform on FDI flows between Europe and the US. We find that European high-tax countries in particular will suffer from a net outflow of FDI.     

“True exposure”: The analysis of trade liberalization in a general equilibrium framework

Zusammenfassung “Wirkliche ?ffnung”: Die Analyse der Handelsliberalisierung im Rahmen eines Modells des allgemeinen Gleichgewichts. - Das kürzlich entwickelte Konzept der “wirklichen Protektion” wird in diesem Beitrag für die Analyse des Abbaus von Handelsschranken genutzt. Dabei werden die Bedingungen aufgezeigt, unter denen es zu absoluten Preissteigerungen (-Senkungen) der Binnengüter bzw. zu einer Abwertung (Aufwertung) des realen Wechselkurses kommt. Au▾erdem werden die Wirkungen von Einkommenseffekten pr?zisiert. Der Vergleich verschiedener Wechselkursregime, unter denen eine Liberalisierung stattfinden kann, führt zu einer eindeutigen Pr?ferenz für flexible Wechselkurse, die mit freiem Kapitalverkehr verbunden sind. Daher spricht einiges dafür, da▾ eine Liberalisierung des Kapitalverkehrs dem Abbau von Protektion im Handel vorausgehen sollte.

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Résumé “Vraie exposition”: l’analyse de la libéralisation du commerce international en cadre de l’équilibre général. - Cet article applique le concept récemment développé de la “vraie protection” pour une analyse des effets de la libéralisation du commerce international. L’auteur discute les conditions sous lesquelles le niveau de prix des biens non-commerciables accro?t (décro?t) ou le taux de change réel dévalorise (revalorise). De plus, l’effet des changements de revenu est analysé. Une comparaison des régimes alternatifs de taux de change sous lesquelles la libéralisation du commerce peut se passer démontre clairement la supériorité d’ un taux de change flexible avec des mouvements libres des capitaux internationaux. Cela pourrait indiquer qu’il faut libérer les mouvements des capitaux internationaux avant la libéralisation du commerce extérieur.

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Resumen Exposición al riesgo: el análisis de la liberalización del comercio en un marco de equilibrio general. - En este trabajo se utiliza el concepto de “protección verdadera”, desarrollado recientemente, en un análisis de los efectos de la liberalización del comercio. Se discuten las condiciones bajo las cuales el nivel de precios de bienes no transables aumenta (disminuye) o la tasa de cambio real es devaluada (revaluada). Asimismo, se analiza el impacto de cambios en el nivel de ingresos. Una comparación de regímenes de cambio alternativos bajo los cuales puede tener lugar una liberalización del comercio demuestra sin ambiguedades la superioridad de una tasa de cambio flexible con un libre movimiento internacional de capitales. Esto puede indicar que la liberalización del movimiento internacional de capitales debiera preceder a la liberalización del comercio.

     

The relationship between efficiency and profitability with respect to the size of firms: An empirical investigation for Austria

In this paper, an attempt is made to investigate the performance of Upper-Austrian firms by size class. Considering the six derived hypotheses, why small firms have a better performance measure, some of the hypothesis with respect to profitability and labour cost efficiency are confirmed. On average, the gross residual quota (profitability measure) of small firms is higher than the one of medium-sized and large firms. However, a similar result could not be found for the productivity development. Considering the influence of the firm size on the productivity measure, there is in three out of four cases no statistically significant influence at all and in one case the opposite result is obtained indicating the larger the firm, the higher is the productivity. In the case of labour cost efficiency, the hypothesis (the smaller the firm the lower the labour cost per employee) is clearly confirmed.     

On third order rotatability

Third order rotatability of experimental designs, moment matrices and information surfaces is investigated, using a Kronecker power representation. This representation complicates the model but greatly simplifies the theoretical development, and throws light on difficulties experienced in some previous work. Third order rotatability is shown to be characterized by the finitely many transformations consisting of permutations and a bi-axial 45 degree rotation, and the space of rotatable third order symmetric matrices is shown to be of dimension 20, independent of the number of factorsm. A general Moore-Penrose inverse of a third order rotatable moment matrix is provided, leading to the information surface, and the corresponding optimality results are discussed. After a brief literature review, extensions to higher order models, the connections with tensor representations of classic matrix groups, and the evaluation of a general dimension formula, are all explored.     

Euro-Asian trade: The stepchild in triadic relations takes over

Euro-Asian trade was for a long time by far the weakest link in the triadic chain of economic relationships between Europe, North America and Asia. The development of the EC towards the single market, the opening up of Eastern Europe and the growth of trade within the Asia Pacific region itself have led to the expectation that this link would become even weaker in future. The following article presents evidence to the contrary. This paper is a revised version of a lecture given at the Euro-Asia Centre of INSEAD on 14 February 1992. The statistical work and the preparation of graphs was largely done by Alexander Bushaev.     

Exploring the link between internationalization of top management and accounting quality: The CFO’s international experience matters

This study examines whether and how top management internationalization is associated with accounting quality. We combine upper echelons perspectives, agency theory, human capital theory and accounting research, and demonstrate that top management internationalization mitigates the level of managerial discretion in financial reporting. By decomposing the top management team, our analysis reveals that higher levels of accounting quality are associated with the internationalization of the CFO, not the internationalization of the CEO. In particular, we find that CFO’s international education and international work experience are important factors in higher accounting quality.