Transfer pricing in the multinational corporation: A critical appraisal

A distinguishing characteristic of the multinational corporation is its ability to determine with some discretion the prices at which intra-firm transfers of goods and services are recorded. The incentives to manipulate such transfer prices in pursuit of global corporate objectives are often substantial. This paper examines the potential for abuse of the transfer pricing tool by multinational corporations, considers the adequacy of legal rules or guidelines for the setting of transfer prices and the extent to which corporate practice conforms with such guidelines, and assesses the prospects for more effective governmental control of transfer pricing policies.     

The Response of Trade Prices to Exchange Rate Changes

The present paper examines export and import pricing behavior following exchange rate changes in small, open economies. Using a monopolistic model, this study reveals that export and import prices should change but not in proportion to exchange rate movements. The policy implication of the results is that the pricing to market phenomenon could be a critical factor in explaining the evolution of the external trade balance with strategic interaction present in the case of prices on tradable goods. Consequently, the use of an exchange rate policy in the case of external imbalances should be a central issue within the broader context of how market structure and conduct affect the optimal traded goods prices.     

Commodity problem: What next?

Export commodity prices of developing countries are now at their lowest point since 1980–1981. International action to stem the decline in prices or provide sufficient compensatory finance has been limited, and no overall plan is under way to improve the situation. Under these circumstances the developing countries must fend for themselves, through expansion of their mutual trade with a minimum use of scarce convertible foreign exchange, and through improvement of their bargaining position in the world market, where feasible, through coordinated selling of their products. These actions call for: (1) an expansion of South-South compensable trade (“counter-trade”) and its better organization in order to reduce the excessive discounts and marketing margins which now prevail; (2) centralized selling in the world market at better prices of commodities for which the demand is price-inelastic (tropical beverages and to some degree metals); and (3) expansion of volume of sales at competitive prices of products which face substitution of synthetics or goods produced in developed countries, provided such expansion is profitable.This paper discusses these alternatives and the potential problems which may continue to interfere with progress. The author concludes that the need for international cooperative action will grow pari passu with the need to cooperate in money and finance, which are in as much trouble as commodities and international trade.     

Exchange Rate Pass-through in a Small Open Economy: the Importance of the Distribution Sector

The degree of exchange rate pass-through to domestic goods prices has important implications for monetary policy in small open economies with floating exchange rates. Evidence indicates that pass-through is faster to import prices than to consumer prices. Price setting behaviour in the distribution sector is suggested as one important explanation. If distribution costs and trade margins are important price components of imported consumer goods, adjustment of import prices and consumer prices to exchange rate movements may differ. We present evidence on these issues for Norway by estimating a cointegrated VAR model for the pricing behaviour in the distribution sector, paying particular attention to exchange rate channels likely to operate through trade margins. Embedding this model into a large scale macroeconometric model of the Norwegian economy, which inter alia includes the pricing-to-market hypothesis and price-wage and wage-wage spirals between industries, we find exchange rate pass-through to be quite rapid to import prices and fairly slow to consumer prices. We show the importance of the pricing behaviour in the distribution sector in that trade margins act as cushions to exchange rate fluctuations, thereby delaying pass-through significantly to consumer prices. A forecasting exercise demonstrates that exchange rate pass-through to trade margins has not changed in the wake of the financial crises and the switch to inflation targeting. We also find significant inflationary effects of exchange rate changes even in the short run, an insight important for inflation targeting central banks.     

Optimal Exchange-Rate Policy in a Model of Local-Currency Pricing with Vertical Production and Trade

In this paper, we examine optimal exchange-rate flexibility in a model of local-currency pricing with vertical production and trade. Following a large body of empirical evidence, we assume that final-goods prices are sticky, but intermediate-goods prices are flexible. We find that, unlike what is found in the literature, optimal nominal exchange rate is flexible under local-currency pricing. The key element in deriving our conclusion is the difference in expenditure shares between home and foreign households. The conclusion holds even if the degrees of home bias in production are identical between home and foreign final-goods producers, which contrasts with the findings in the literature.     

Public utility pricing and regional development in South Africa

The paper considers the effects of public utility pricing in respect of (i) the rail transport of goods, (ii) electricity supply and (iii) irrigation water in the pursuit of economic efficiency and regional development, both of which represent objectives of economic policy in South Africa. It appears that public utility prices deviate significantly from the resource costs of the respective services supplied and generally tend to have greater impact on economic efficiency than on regional development. Moreover, it may well be the case that the South African economy has not yet reached an unequivocal trade‐off state between economic efficiency and regional equity. It is therefore suggested that public utility pricing be directed at achieving a more efficient pattern of resource allocation, while regional development be promoted by measures to stimulate internal and external economies of scale.     

地方政府土地市场行为的经济学分析

当前,城市非理性扩张、房价不断攀升、土地市场秩序混乱等问题日益凸显,这离不开地方政府的土地市场行为。文章重点分析了地方政府的土地征购、出让定价、实物地租转嫁以及协议出让等行为,指出中央——地方的财政竞争以及地区之间的平行竞争是其深层次的制度根源,而中国土地制度的产权缺陷决定地方政府对土地市场的“事实垄断”为其提供了现实基础。因此,规避地方政府行为对经济的不利影响,必须明确地方政府土地市场的监管职能,深化土地市场改革,充分发挥市场机制的基础性作用。     

Does quality differentiation matter in exporters' pricing behaviour? Comparing China and India

The product quality dimension has been rarely mentioned as a factor explaining the heterogeneous pricing strategies of exporters. This could underestimate the degree of mark-up adjustment and the extent of incomplete exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) at a disaggregated level across products and destination markets. This paper investigates the role of quality differentiation in price discrimination using data for China and India's exports disaggregated at the 6-digit product level across destination markets. The paper adopts an empirical approach that incorporates gravity model explanatory factors and allows disentangling the effect of quality on trade prices and volumes from that of other sources of price variation. After excluding short duration export spells, China's export prices denominated in foreign currency terms increase with the yuan's depreciation, implying an increase in exporters' mark-ups, but they decrease as expected in the case of India. However, mark-up increases decline with product quality and destination market income, as the elasticity of demand perceived by exporters increases. These findings remain robust to different measures of quality, samples, specifications, and to the potential endogeneity of quality.     

Pricing policy and quality upgrading in the Swedish car market: Do import surveillance and exchange rate instability matter?

Recent years have seen an increased use of quantitative restrictions in passenger car trade. In this paper we investigate the impact of import surveillance on product and pricing policies of car manufactures in the Swedish car market over the period 1986–1989. Evidence is found of substantal upgrading in Japanese (and German) car supply. The evidence on changes in quality-adjusted prices is less conclusive. In addition it is found that exchange rate changes were not passed through to car prices.     

跨国公司逆向避税的博弈分析

逆向避税损害了东道国的税收管辖权,影响了东道国的国际收支平衡,造成东道国的资本外流和境内外厂商之间的不公平竞争。逆向避税的形成既有利益驱动原因、规避风险原因,也有战略驱动原因,文章基于博弈论视角,分析了逆向避税所采用的转让定价、资本弱化等主要手段,提出了反逆向避税的转让定价、资本弱化策略。     

影响跨国公司技术转移的因素分析

全球经济中已形成了以跨国公司为主体的复杂一体化的国际生产体系。在这一体系中,跨国公司特别是来自发达国家的跨国公司既是先进技术的载体和绝大多数前沿技术的创新者,也是国际技术转移与技术扩散的主体。随着前沿创新领域的扩展、创新成本的迅速提升以及高科技活动战略联盟     

The International Transmission of Monetary Policy in a Dollar Pricing Model

This paper analyses the international transmission of monetary policy in the case where all export prices are set in US dollars. “Dollar pricing” implies that the international effects of US monetary shocks are different from those of European shocks because of an asymmetric exchange rate pass-through to import prices. A dollar pricing model can explain the observed asymmetry in the transmission of monetary policy: US monetary policy affects US output more than European monetary policy affects European output. I also show that the current account is an important channel through which monetary policy affects welfare. The paper concludes that under dollar pricing a monetary expansion is a beggar-thy-neighbour policy.     

影响跨国公司技市转移的因素分析

全球经济中已形成了以跨国公司为主体的复杂一体化的国际生产体系。在这一体系中，跨国公司特别是来自发达国家的跨国公司既是先进技术的载体和绝大多数前沿技术的创新者，也是国际技术转移与技术扩散的主体。随着前沿创新领域的扩展、创新成本的迅速提升以及高科技活动战略联盟的发展，没有跨国公司的直接参与而获得新技术将是一件越来越困难的事。而且，随着FDI机制越来越自由化的发展，创新活动成本的提升使跨国公司更倾向于内部的技术转移：随着我国加入wT0，开放的逐步深化，贸易投资的日益自由化可能会进一步使技术引进的政策失效可见，如何在大量吸引外资的同时加速外商技术转移已成为我们引进外资过程中亟需解决的一大重要课题。本文首先分析了跨国公司技术转移实现的过程，进而提出了跨国公司技术转移的行为函数，以此为基础建立了总体分析模型，明确了影响跨国公司技术转移的现实经济因素．为进一步确立政策选择思路提供了理论依据。     

Firm Heterogeneity and Export Pricing in India

We examine export pricing by Indian manufacturing firms in the early 2000s using a unique data set that matches firm characteristics with product and destination‐level trade data. We find that, in contrast to China and other countries, firm productivity is negatively associated with export prices, and export prices are negatively associated with distance while positively associated with remoteness. Our conjecture is that Indian innovation costs, which are higher than China's, drive down the scope for quality differentiation causing a negative association between productivity and prices. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first empirical evidence consistent with heterogenous goods and short quality ladders, a theoretical possibility noted in the study by Antoniades (2012), an outcome that arises here because of domestic Indian economic and regulatory features.     

Botox and bridges: South African exports of health and construction services

Until relatively recently, policy makers and academics directed little attention to trade in services. This has changed in recognition of the increasing role of services in economic growth, trade and investment. In World Trade Organisation (WTO) and other trade negotiations, discussions on services have become as important a. s., if not more important than, those on trade in goods. Despite the growing contribution of services to exports and economic development, trade in services remains highly regulated, especially in developing countries. This article outlines the main methodological and policy challenges facing developing countries, such as South Africa, in trying to understand the economic implications of service liberalisation. This is achieved largely by means of two case studies of the construction and health services sectors. While the findings are preliminary and the policy conclusions speculative, the article provides some examples of the key analytical difficulties that arise in services analysis. More importantly, it highlights the need for the government to develop integrated service sector strategies that recognise the contribution of trade to development policy and the impact of domestic regulations on trade.     

The gain from commitment in a two-country economy with inflation persistence

In recent years, the worldwide inflation rate appears to be converging to a low stable level. Moreover, the Phillips curve is flattening in many countries. These facts indicate that the output gap fluctuations associated with inflation persistence in one country influence other countries and suggest that the central bank consider the effect of inflation persistence on the real economy in an open economy framework. The objective of this paper is to explore optimal monetary policy in a two-country economy with inflation persistence. To consider the case in which inflation persistence is present in both countries, we assume that a fraction of firms that change their prices follows the rule-of-thumb pricing rule. In this case, the new Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC) in each country becomes flatter as the fraction of firms employing the rule-of-thumb pricing rule increases in both countries. Our results show gains from commitment in a two-country economy with inflation persistence. This paper addresses that the presence of a severe deflationary bias is the main source of the large gain from a commitment policy in a two-country economy with inflation persistence.     

The Impact of Macroeconomic Risk on Asset Prices in Ghana, 1997–2002

Abstract: The dwindling nature of overseas development assistance in the early part of the 1990s called for the establishment of capital markets in some African countries, including Ghana, with the view to increasing foreign direct investments and achieving sustainable inflows, growth and development. One important factor which affects the determination of prices and the growth of capital markets is macroeconomic risk which is quite high in developing countries. Following works done on advanced stock markets, this study seeks to investigate the impact of six macroeconomic risk factors on asset pricing in the various industrial classification — financial, manufacturing, food and beverages, distribution and mining under the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) for the period January 1997 to December 2002. Using the arbitrage pricing methodology developed by Ross (1976) and Chen et al. (1986) , the study revealed that investors in Ghana considered three main macroeconomic risk factors — short‐term interest rate risk, inflation risk and the term structure of the country's interest rate in the determination of the various industrial asset prices during the period under consideration. Analysis of the risks and returns profile of the industries also shows that financial assets made the best gains on the market. Both general and specific policy recommendations aimed at improving the performance of the GSE are explored.     

The Renminbi as a Trading Currency: Evidence from Selected Countries Participating in the Belt and Road Initiative

This paper investigates the effects of the renminbi (RMB) exchange rate on trade prices and volumes in selected Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries in comparison with the effects of the US dollar. The stylized facts show that the RMB is underused in bilateral trade with selected BRI countries where intermediate goods dominate. By estimating the level of exchange rate pass‐through and trade volume elasticity, we find that the RMB is significantly correlated with the volume of imports in the sample countries, predicted by the producer currency pricing (PCP) paradigm. We also regroup intermediate and final goods between China and the BRI countries. The evidence shows that dollar fluctuation affects export volumes, reflecting the role of the US as a final goods destination, whereas the RMB exerts a significant impact on the volume of intermediate goods imported from China to the sample countries due to China's important position in global value chains.     

金融危机背景下石油价格波动对我国经济影响实证分析

通过选取我国宏观经济数据中反映消费、投资、贸易、价格水平四方面22个经济指标数据,运用因子分析法提取主因子,之后采用VAR模型,分析我国石油价格波动对宏观经济产生的影响。结果表明:贸易对石油价格的变化最为敏感,前期的波动较大;石油价格上涨对消费存在逆向影响,随着价格上涨消费的变化达到低点后缓慢回升;石油价格上涨对物价水平和投资的影响相对不明显。     

Measuring Pricing to Market in the Eurozone: The Case of the Automobile Industry

In this paper we measure the pricing to market for the main export products in the Eurozone automobile industry. Results reveal that significant markup adjustments exist following exchange rate variations. In general, these adjustments allow a strong stabilization of prices in buyer's currency terms. Nevertheless, the degree of pricing to market is quite heterogeneous and differs highly across both product categories and destination markets.