Tax Incentives for Business Investment: A Primer for Policy Makers in Developing Countries

The use of tax incentives is widespread even though the available empirical evidence on the cost-effectiveness of such incentives in stimulating investment is highly inconclusive. This paper is primarily intended as a primer on the use of tax incentives for policy makers, especially those in developing countries. It discusses the objectives, cost-effectiveness, and transparency of implementing tax incentives; assesses the comparative merits of alternative forms of such incentives; and provides a review of the empirical literature. Its main conclusions are that the justification for the use of tax incentives should be limited to the rectification of market failures, and that the preferred form of tax incentives are those that provide for faster recovery of investment costs.     

International business alliances: an incomplete contract approach

This paper is an attempt to utilize an incomplete contract approach to explain various forms of alliances in international business. We present a simple model of vertical integration as internalization. It provides theoretical foundations to understand the multinational enterprise's choice between inter-firm transactions and intra-firm transactions. In a simple framework, we provide a rationale for joint ventures, original equipment manufacturing (OEM), cross-licensing and divestment by focusing on the subcontractor's incentives. Moreover, we discuss transfer pricing and some policies such as incentives, taxation, and local content requirements.     

Good Girl,Bad Boy? Evidence Consistent with Collusion in Professional Tennis

We identify professional tennis matches where one player competes for extraordinarily high payoffs while their opposition does not. Players “on the bubble” of direct qualification to upcoming Grand Slam events face substantially higher stakes than opponents, which presents an opportunity for collusion. Our findings produce evidence that is consistent with the hypothesis of unethical behavior taking place on the men's tour, as bubble players are 5.1 percentage points more likely to beat better ranked opponents than in comparable nonbubble matches. However, no such evidence emerges when analyzing women's tennis. We find additional support for the hypothesis of match‐fixing activities on the men's tour from analyzing the occurrence of tie‐breaks and the fact that our results become stronger once monetary incentives were increased after the 2013 season. Finally, the betting market does not predict this phenomenon, further confirming our suspicion of irregular activities.     

The effects of competition on the nature of cheating behavior

Competition among individuals comes in a variety of forms: for mates, for resources, and for prestige and recognition. Such competitive pressure can lead individuals to engage in unethical behavior in an effort to get ahead. There are several forms of cheating in which individuals may engage to improve their own outcome: they may lie about their own performance in a task and they may lie about others’ performance in a task. Our research is the first to examine how competition affects each of these two types of cheating behavior. We find that individuals are much more willing to cheat by lying about themselves than they are willing to sabotage another when under competitive pressure.     

Incentives, Choice, and Accountability in the Provision of Public Services

This paper discusses a theoretical framework to study the issuesof competition and incentives without relying on the standardprofit-oriented ‘market’ model in the context ofthe debates about public-service reform in the UK. It uses theidea that the production of public services coheres around amission, and discusses how decentralized service provision canraise productivity by matching motivated workers to their preferredmissions. Our focus on competition and incentives cuts acrosstraditional debates about public versus private ownership andallows for the possibility of involving private non-profit organizations.We also address concerns about the consequences of allowingmore flexibility in mission design and competition on inequality.     

The trade balance effects of infrastructure services regulation

This paper addresses the relationship between the design of incentives to firms under regulation, mainly the rule for adjusting tariffs, and trade balance performance of the country. We also explore whether this relationship is relevant or not for a typical developing economy like Argentina. We find it is. To study these issues we perform comparative static numerical exercises using a CGE model where service obligation and no entry in regulated industries are assumed. We show that the capital account openness and the rate of exchange regime could be key elements to match with the regulatory regime. The potential inconsistency between the international trade regime and the regulatory regime should not be rejected a priori.     

FDI税收激励的两难选择

本文从博弈论视角分析实施税收激励政策吸引FDI的内在机理,并以亚洲其他国家的税收激励实践为鉴,探析当周边国家实行税收激励时,我国面临两难时的谨慎选择。     

The Effect of Whistle-Blowing Incentives on Collusion: An Experimental Study of Leniency Programs

Policymakers are increasingly using whistle-blowing incentives aimed at curtailing illegal or unethical behavior. We theoretically and experimentally investigate one version of whistle-blowing incentive: leniency programs aimed at curbing anticompetitive activities by firms, by reducing the punishment faced by a cartel member who reports the cartel's behavior. The theoretical model captures the two important effects of whistle-blowing incentives: the direct effect, a reduction in the stability of cartels, and the counterproductive indirect effect, an increase in the incentives to form cartels in the first place by lowering the cost of exiting them. As these point in opposite directions, the net theoretical effect is indeterminate. Our laboratory experiment compares two leniency programs—full immunity from fines and partial immunity—against a baseline with no whistle-blowing incentives in place. We find evidence of the direct effect but not the indirect effect, and thus both programs reduce the extent of price fixing and the damage associated with it.     

A Cartel's Response to Cheating: An Empirical Investigation of the De Beers Diamond Empire

De Beers is one of the longest lived international cartels in history. But have recent events threatened the diamond pricing structure so carefully developed over the past 100 years? In this paper, we use time series econometric techniques to evaluate the cartel's response to Russian cheating in the 1990s, We find that, despite massive Russian leaks, the cartel held to its long-term supply management policy of using its inventory to control the flow of rough diamonds into downstream markets. Although the cartel was able to survive the cheating, it remains unclear whether De Beers will continue to rely on its traditional strategy.     

从集体化到新型集体化:关于中国农业生产组织形式研究文献的综述

在梳理和归纳相关研究文献的基础上,文章大体勾勒出我国农业生产组织形式的演变进程。分析表明,从人民公社时期的集体化生产组织形式到关注农民激励的土地家庭承包制,再到地权私有化和新型农业合作社,我国农业生产组织形式的内涵发生了实质性变化。该领域的研究主题从单纯的生产效率延伸到地权稳定性、土地流转以及产权完备性等多方面,引导着我国农业生产组织形式改革的新方向。     

Assessing the Determinants of NCAA Football Violations

What are the factors that cause members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) intercollegiate sports cartel to cheat? We develop a model that reflects the multi-institutional aspects of the decision process involved in the determination of major football program NCAA violations including university performance and incentives, rival behavior, and NCAA enforcement. Prior research is prone to omitted variable bias since studies have typically focused on only one of those components. The data sample includes all major football programs from 1981 to 2011, with 3,420 annual institution observations. Our empirical results confirm the multidimensional aspects of the cheating calculus. University characteristics and leadership, conference rivals, public/private university status, and different NCAA enforcement regimes are all significant contributors to the decision to cheat on the NCAA cartel.     

The Private Delivery of Public Crop Varieties: Rice in Andhra Pradesh

Although there has been a considerable growth of private seed enterprises in developing countries, there are few examples of the private delivery of seed of public crop varieties that are not hybrids. This paper discusses the example of rice in Andhra Pradesh, where private enterprise is supplying an increasing proportion of the seed used by farmers. The institutional conditions for private expansion into rice seed are examined. The paper discusses instances where low transaction costs allow for the emergence of a wide range of seed enterprises. But despite the success of private seed delivery, inadequate attention has been given to incentives for variety promotion, and to the importance of consumer education.     

Price‐Match Announcements in a Consumer Search Duopoly

Using a model of sequential search, we show that announcements to price‐match raise prices by altering consumer search behavior. First, price‐matching diminishes firms’ incentives to lower prices to attract consumers who have no search costs. Second, for consumers with positive search costs, price‐matching lowers the marginal benefit of search, inducing them to accept higher prices. Finally, price‐matching can lead to asymmetric equilibria where one firm runs fewer sales and both firms tend to offer smaller discounts than in a symmetric equilibrium. Price increases grow in the proportion of consumers who invoke price‐matching guarantees and in the level of equilibrium asymmetry.     

Fiscal incentives,competition, and investment in China

This paper explores how fiscal incentives offered to local governments in China affect investment rates in their jurisdictions. Theoretically, we build a simple fiscal competition model to establish the linkage between local fiscal incentives and expenditure policy and consequently, capital movement. The key prediction of the model, borne out by data from Chinese provinces spanning 2004–2013, is that an increase in the local corporate income tax-sharing ratio, which proxies fiscal incentives offered to local governments, motivates local governments to compete for capital investment through increased public expenditure. Our results contribute to the literature on both fiscal federalism and state capacity by showing that local fiscal incentives significantly shape policy choices and local economic performance. In addition, by exploring fiscal incentives offered to local governments, we offer a novel explanation for the unusually high investment rate in China that has been sustained over a prolonged period.     

Auditor Conservatism,Asymmetric Monitoring,and Earnings Management*

In this paper, we investigate whether, and how, audit effectiveness differentiation between Big 6 and non‐Big 6 auditors is influenced by a conflict or convergence of reporting incentives faced by corporate managers and external auditors. In so doing, we incorporate into our analysis the possibility that managers self‐select both external auditors and discretionary accruals, using the two stage “treatment effects” model. Our results show that only when managers have incentives to prefer income‐increasing accrual choices are Big 6 auditors more effective than non‐Big 6 auditors in deterring/monitoring opportunistic earnings management. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find Big 6 auditors are less effective than non‐Big 6 auditors when both managers and auditors have incentives to prefer income‐decreasing accrual choices and thus no conflict of reporting incentives exists between the two parties. The above findings are robust to different proxies for opportunistic earnings management and different proxies for the direction of earnings management incentives.     

Cheating and Enforcement in Asymmetric Rank‐Order Tournaments

In rank‐order tournaments, undesirable but output‐enhancing activities, such as cheating, may occur. Cheating may be especially tempting when one player has an advantage over another. We show that when audit probabilities are low (high), the leading (trailing) player has more incentive to cheat. Furthermore, we show that “correlated” audits are more effective at decreasing the frequency of cheating than independent audits. Finally, we show that differential monitoring schemes, where contestants are audited based on either their initial position or final ranking, more efficiently achieve full deterrence than schemes that monitor contestants with equal probability.     

CEO与CFO股权激励的治理效应之比较:基于盈余管理的实证研究

在西方发达国家,CFO与CEO拥有相同的法律地位,负有监督CEO的责任,在公司治理结构中拥有重要的地位。本文从盈余管理角度研究我国CFO股权激励的公司治理效应,并比较CFO与CEO股权激励的公司治理效应,发现:尚未实施股权激励计划的公司,其CFO股权和期权占总薪酬比率与盈余管理呈负相关关系,而实施股权激励计划的公司,其CFO股权和期权占总薪酬比率与盈余管理的负相关关系显著变弱;尚未实施股权激励计划的公司,其CFO股权和期权占总薪酬比率对盈余管理抑制的程度显著小于CEO。这表明,正式实施股权激励会诱发盈余管理行为,其它类型的CFO持股则会抑制盈余管理行为,并且CFO股权激励的积极治理效应显著小于CEO。     

Transboundary Pollution in Southeast Asia: The Indonesian Fires

Uncontrollable forest fires in Indonesia have caused much environmental damage in Southeast Asia with immediate countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, and even Southern Thailand bearing most of it. The intentional burning of forests has engendered a transboundary haze pollution problem with severe economic ramifications in both victim and perpetrator countries. This paper reviews the related issues and suggested policy responses from the different interdisciplinary perspectives. Identification and analysis by way of a “stakeholders approach” to the possible sharing of costs in certain programs to combat the fires and haze is suggested. The paper also discusses the role of economic incentives in managing forest fires.     

Conflict in Africa: The Cost of Peaceful Behaviour

War provides economic opportunities, such as the capture ofvaluable natural resources, that are unavailable in peacetime.However, belligerents may prefer low-intensity conflict to totalwar when the former has a greater pay-off. This paper thereforeuses a two-actor model to capture the continuum from total warto complete peace that often characterises Africa's conflicts.This is in contrast to the existing literature, with its focuson mutually exclusive states of total war or complete peace,an assumption which is more relevant to Europe's inter-statewars than to Africa's civil wars. The paper also discusses waysto change the economic incentives of belligerents so that theirbehaviour becomes more peaceful.     

产业集群中物联网信息共享的合作研究

研究了物联网引入到产业集群信息共享中所产生的企业竞合行为的影响,基于演化博弈理论提出了引入监督机制的物联网信息共享的合作模型。在缺乏监督机制的情况下,企业间的欺骗行为无法受到约束;适当的监督机制可以约束企业的欺骗行为。通过对未引入监督机制与引入监督机制模型比较,发现产业集群中企业缺乏引入监督机制的动力。最后提出了一种监督机制的引入方法,使得监督机制对产业集群中企业有吸引力。