Effectiveness of minimum tax legislation and its effect on corporate financial reporting: A comparative analysis between the United States and India

This paper reports a comparative analysis of the experience of introducing minimum tax legislation in the US and India. Given the differences in the economic and market settings in the two countries, one would expect the impact of the regulation and the corporate response to its introduction to be different. Our empirical analysis, however, indicates that the response to the minimum tax legislation in India is very similar to that in the US. The evidence indicates that the minimum tax legislation is not the best means of achieving horizontal equity among taxpayers, given its significant administrative and compliance costs and the manipulative reporting response it generates from the corporate sector.     

A perceived reliability-based customer satisfaction model in self-service technology

Technical reliability of self-service technologies (SSTs) has been found to be a strong determinant of satisfaction with tech-enabled services. Yet, the interpretation of the factors affecting reliability and its subsequent influences on customer satisfaction (CS) with SSTs is inadequate. The purpose of this investigation has, therefore, been to demarcate a model to fulfill the gap with an empirical examination, and accordingly a model was developed and tested by applying a global structural equation model. The model results of banking SST users specify how the reliability of SSTs is perceived by the users. The findings have reported that the best predictor of perceived reliability (PRe) is perceived security followed by perceived control. Surprisingly, no significant impact of perceived ease of use was found on PRe. The research also attempted to shed light on the influence of PRe on perceived risk, technology trust, and CS in the light of technology-enabled self-service.     

Top Indian Incomes, 1922-2000

This article presents data on the evolution of top incomes andwages for 1922–2000 in India using individual tax returndata. The data show that the shares of the top 0.01 percent,0.1 percent, and 1 percent in total income shrank substantiallyfrom the 1950s to the early to mid-1980s but then rose again,so that today these shares are only slightly below what theywere in the 1920s and 1930s. This U-shaped pattern is broadlyconsistent with the evolution of economic policy in India: Fromthe 1950s to the early to mid-1980s was a period of "socialist"policies in India, whereas the subsequent period, starting withthe rise of Rajiv Gandhi, saw a gradual shift toward more probusinesspolicies. Although the initial share of the top income groupwas small, the fact that the rich were getting richer had anontrivial impact on the overall income distribution. Althoughthe impact is not large enough to fully explain the gap observedduring the 1990s between average consumption growth shown inNational Sample Survey–based data and the national accounts–baseddata, it is sufficiently large to explain a nonnegligible partof it (20–40 percent).     

Attitude basis,certainty, and challenge alignment: A case of negative brand publicity

By integrating research from attitude challenge matching and consumer alignment and judgment revision, the authors explore how firms can position brands to insulate them from negative publicity and how consumers evaluate brands in reaction to such publicity. They introduce an important moderator of brand evaluation revision, prior brand attitude certainty, and propose that when negative publicity matches or “aligns” with the basis of a brand attitude, certainty in that attitude interacts with the attitude, determining the affect of the negative publicity on brand evaluations. The results of two experiments suggest that prior brand attitudes held with high certainty tend to “nsulate” brands, even when negative publicity matches or aligns with the bases of brand attitudes, whereas brand attitudes held with low certainty may exacerbate the effects of negative event publicity. The results also show that multiplex positioning (positioning a brand with both performance-and values-based attributes) may insulate brands more effectively from negative publicity. Chris Pullig (chris_pullig@baylor.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing in the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University. Before beginning his academic career, Professor Pullig worked in the retail industry as the CEO of a chain of specialty clothing stores and also as a consultant with the Small Business Administration. He received his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University and was previously on the faculty at the University of Virginia. His research is in consumer attitudes and decision making, with an emphasis on effective creation and the protection of consumer-based brand equity. His previous work has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Consumer Psychology, theJournal of Public Policy and Marketing, and others. Richard G. Netemeyer (rgn3p@virginia.edu) is the Ralph A. Beeton Professor of Free Enterprise in the Mclntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia. He received his PhD in business administration from the University of South Carolina in 1986. From 1986 to 2001, he was a member of the Marketing Department in the College of Business at Louisiana State University. In 2001, he joined the faculty at Mclntire. His substantive research interests include’ consumer and organizational behavior topics and public policy and social issues. His methodological research interests focus on survey methods and measurement. His research has been published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Applied Psychology, theAmerican Journal of Public Health, and others. Abhijit Biswas (a.biswas@wayne.edu) is the Kmart Endowed Chair and Professor of Marketing at the School of Business Administration, Wayne State University. He received his PhD from the University of Houston. His research interest is primarily in the area of pricing and consumer behavior, and he has published numerous research papers in journals such as theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Consumer Psychology, theJournal of Public Policy and Marketing, theJournal of Advertising, theJournal of Business Research, Psychology and Marketing, Marketing Letters, and other refereed journals and proceedings. He currently serves on the editorial boards of theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science and theJournal of Public Policy and Marketing and is the associate editor for the Business and Marketing Research track of the Journal of Business Research.     

An Integrated Assessment of Productivity and Efficiency Impacts of Information Technology Investments: Old Data,New Analysis and Evidence

We reexamine the Information Technology (IT) productivity paradox from the standpoints of theoretical basis, measurement issues and potential inefficiency in IT management. Two key objectives are: (i) to develop an integrated microeconomic framework for IT productivity and efficiency assessment using developments in production economics, and (ii) to apply the framework to a dataset used in prior research with mixed results to obtain new evidence regarding IT contribution. Using a stochastic frontier with a production economics framework involving the behavioral assumptions of profit maximization and cost minimization, we obtain a unified basis to assess both productivity and efficiency impacts of IT investments. The integrated framework is applied to a manufacturing database spanning 1978–1984. While previous productivity research with this dataset found mixed results regarding the contribution from IT capital, we show the negative marginal contribution of IT found in an important prior study is attributable primarily to the choices of the IT deflator and modeling technique. Further, by ignoring the potential inefficiency in IT investment and management, studies that have reported positive results may have significantly underestimated the true contribution of IT. This positive impact of IT is consistent across multiple model specifications, estimation techniques and capitalization methods. The stochastic production frontier analysis shows that while there were significant technical, allocative and scale inefficiencies, the inefficiencies reduced with an increase in the IT intensity. Given that the organizational units in our sample increased their IT intensity during the time period covered by the study, management was taking a step in the right direction by increasing the IT share of capital inputs. Our results add to a small body of MIS literature which reports significant positive returns from IT investments.     

A Hotelling–Downs model of electoral competition with the option to quit

We study a variant of the multi-candidate Hotelling–Downs model that recognizes that politicians, even after declaring candidacy, have the option of withdrawing from the electoral contest before the election date and saving the cost of continuing campaign. We find that this natural variant significantly alters equilibrium predictions. We give conditions for the existence of an equilibrium for an arbitrary finite number of candidates and an arbitrary distribution of single-peaked preferences of voters. We also provide a partial characterization of the equilibrium outcomes that addresses whether policy convergence can be a feature of equilibrium outcomes when more than two candidates enter the electoral contest.     

An Analysis of Exports and Growth in India: Cointegration and Causality Evidence (1971–2001)

The relationship between exports and economic growth has been analysed by a number of recent empirical studies. This paper re‐examines the sources of growth for the period 1971–2001 for India. It builds upon Feder's (1983 ) model to investigate empirically the relationship between export growth and GDP growth (the export led growth hypothesis), using recent data from the Reserve Bank of India, and by focusing on GDP growth and GDP growth net of exports. We investigate the following hypotheses: (i) whether exports, imports and GDP are cointegrated using the Johansen approach and Breitung's nonparametric cointegration test; (ii) whether export growth Granger causes GDP growth; (iii) and whether export growth Granger causes investment. Finally, a VAR is constructed and impulse response functions (IRFs) are employed to investigate the effects of macroeconomic shocks.     

Development Policy Implications for Growth and Regional Inequality in a Small Open Economy: The Indian Case

Inclusive economic development has become a pressing goal of government policy in India in the face of rising regional inequality. This paper examines the role of targeted development policy action in inducing economic growth and also in reducing regional income inequality during the last two decades (since the beginning of the 1990s)—a period marked by increasing trade openness. In our disaggregated analysis of the states, we find that while the government capital expenditure policy has had significant positive impact on output growth of the poorer states, it failed to break the trend of escalating regional inequality. The policy has been significantly more effective in enhancing manufacturing sector output in the poorer states compared with the richer states. On the trade front, while the poorer states gained somewhat in income growth from greater openness, the gains were not large enough to offset the increasing regional disparity.     

Drivers and impact of food inflation in India

Average food inflation in India during 2006–2013 was one of the highest among emerging market economies, and nearly double the inflation witnessed in India during the previous decade. In this paper, we analyse the behaviour and determinants of food inflation over the recent past. Our main findings include that recent surge in food inflation in India is a result of various factors. On the cost side, agricultural wage inflation is found to be a universal driver of food commodities inflation, as well as the aggregate food inflation. The contribution of agricultural wages has increased significantly in the post Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act era. Fuel inflation has a moderate impact on food inflation and the effects vary across commodities. Our analysis indicates limited role of fuel and international prices, except for in tradeables. Finally, results suggest significant pass-through effects from food to non-food and to the headline inflation.