Temptation and the efficient taxation of education and labor

This paper studies efficient tax policies in Ramsey's tradition when consumers face temptation and self control problems in intertemporal decision making. We embed the class of preferences developed by Gul and Pesendorfer into a simple two‐period life‐cycle model and show that education should be effectively subsidized if the elasticity of the earnings function is increasing in education and if temptation problems are sufficiently severe. By contrast, if temptation problems are not sufficiently severe, efficient education policy calls for taxing education. Moreover, efficient labor taxation calls for subsidizing qualified labor if the strength of temptation is sufficiently large.     

Operating performance of European bank mergers

With very few exceptions the accepted viewpoint established by (predominantly) US research is that bank operating performance is not improved after merger. In this article we concentrate on European banks and investigate post-merger operating performance for 35 publicly listed bank mergers that were completed between 1992 and 1997. We find that industry-adjusted mean cash flow return did not significantly change after merger but stayed positive. We also find that the merger led to a significant decrease in profitability and capitalisation. Our key finding, in contrast to the US evidence, is that cost-efficiency ratios improved, although the improvement was not large enough to offset the profitability decrease. We also find that low profitability levels, conservative credit policies and good cost-efficiency status before merger are the main determinants of industry-adjusted cash flow returns and provide the source for improving these returns after merger.     

The Duration of the EC Merger Control Process: Determinants and the Impact of the 2004 Merger Regulation Reform

The duration of merger proceedings held by competition authorities is an important determinant of the efficiency of the entire merger control process. A data set of 2953 Phase I and 92 Phase II investigations completed by the European Commission (EC) between 1999 and 2008 is used to examine the key determinants of their duration. Differentiating between authority- and case-related drivers, the findings show that while the duration of Phase I investigations largely depends on the type of decision and use of simplified procedure, the duration of Phase II investigations is driven by factors such as industry knowledge, the duration of the preceding Phase I investigation, the origin of the notifying firm, or the number of identified relevant markets. Evidence is also provided that the significant increase in average duration identified after the 2004 merger regulation reform does not imply a decrease in administrative efficiency, as the probability of in-depth investigations was correspondingly reduced.     

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.     

HRD involvement in merger and acquisition decisions and strategy development: four organizational portraits

Although the financial and strategic aspects of mergers and acquisitions are well researched, little work has been done on the human resource development implications of this popular topic. The purpose of this case study research project was to explore the timing and scope of HRD involvement in four organizations recently involved in a merger or acquisition, by using three theoretical models as lenses. The results demonstrated that HRD normally was not involved in the initial decision‐making to merge or acquire, even though post‐deal HRD initiatives, particularly related to change management, were perceived as critical indicators of success.     

Partial or total integration in a cross‐border merger? Building a Nordic bank culture

The rate of failure for international mergers and acquisitions (M&As) is exceptionally high, since the integration of merging firms does not function well. Using a process perspective, this study aims to analyze the integration process in a cross‐border merger and the development of a common organizational culture. A framework based on premerger cultural and organizational fit, synergy, and resulting organizational culture is developed to study the growth of Nordea, a merger of four Nordic banks. Data include in‐depth interviews and secondary sources. This case study shows how cultural and managerial differences are dealt with and synergies realized. Building a broad organizational culture involving human resource management, decision making, technology, competitiveness, and customer relationships is necessary for merger integration, but it is costly and difficult. We suggest that success in mergers lies in managers creating a new cultural identity with unique values and perspectives.     

关于国有企业兼并的新思考

兼并是国有企业改革的重要途径之一,兼并可以达到规模经济,节约交易成本,增强竞争力,但是以理性的角度看待兼并,兼并的效果并不止于此,兼并也存在负面效应,如时滞效应,对技术进步的阻碍等。     

EU's competition policy and the GE‐Honeywell merger fiasco: Transatlantic divergence and consumer and regulatory issues

This article discusses and analyzes the European Union's (EU's) competition policy and the 2001 General Electric‐Honeywell merger fiasco within the areas of global business and transatlantic issues. Based on a brief literature review of marketing, competition policy/antitrust law, vertical/horizontal integration, and global business, the article tries to explain those conditions that led to this failed merger. It is expected that in the coming years, the EU's competition policy and the United States' antitrust law will continue to differ and may create problems for those multinationals seeking large‐scale mergers and acquisitions in North America and Europe. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Practically wise ethical decision‐making: An ethnographic application to the UNE‐Millicom merger

Integrated approaches in the ethical decision‐making (EDM) and practically wise decision‐making literature are emerging as alternative perspectives to management theories that conceptualize decision‐making in a rationalist and value‐free manner. However, more dialogue between both perspectives and qualitative research that applies them is required. In addition, there is a need for empirical analysis on business engagement in the face of grand challenges in developing countries. This paper proposes an integrated practically wise EDM framework to study how Colombian councilors who, in 2013, voted for or against the merger between the Colombian state‐owned company UNE and the Swedish multinational Millicom interpret this decision and its public impact. Qualitative semi‐structured interviews were conducted with a voluntary sample of 18 of 21 councilors. Supporters of the UNE‐Millicom merger expressed open‐mindedness, seeing the merger as a means to achieve justice. On the contrary, the merger’s opponents expressed circumspection, doubting that Millicom’s intentions really leaned toward justice. We conclude that practical wisdom—embodied by both supporters and detractors—fosters an understanding of EDM beyond what leaders should not do. It also includes a democratic and balanced deliberation on what leaders think they should do to promote the common good.     

论中国的跨国兼并审查——兼评西方对中国《反垄断法》的观点

美国和欧盟有非常成熟的兼并审查制度。2008年中国的《反垄断法》正式实施,其受到了西方的广泛关注。中国的兼并审查在实体标准和程序机制与美国和欧盟既相似,又有区别。由于中国的历史、目标和当前的问题明显不同于美国和欧盟,因此《反垄断法》在审查兼并所考虑的因素方面已超出了兼并的竞争效果的范围,而包括了兼并对"竞争者"和"国民经济发展"的影响。国际社会应给予中国发展和完善反垄断法的空间,使中国能够在不对国际商业施加负担的情况下实现其特有的目标。对于兼并审查的程序,中国应考虑发展和明确申报体系中有关"控制"的标准,并在条例中规定下来,使其更加可行,以达到在不对国家主权造成侵害的前提下减少对跨国兼并威胁的目的。     

外资并购障碍与对策研究

文章分析了外资并购的动因、发展趋势以及存在的具体问题 ,认为必须通过健全法律法规 ,简化审批程序 ;规范资产评估制度 ,提高资产评估水平 ;适当放宽外资并购领域 ,进一步放开对外资并购的持股限制 ;大力发展资本市场 ;充分发挥政府的导向作用和监督作用 ,为外资并购的顺利开展创造良好的政策与社会环境。     

The new EU merger regulation: Implications for EU‐U.S. merger strategies

This article examines the implications of the new EU merger regulation (EU 139/2004) on international merger strategies. Important changes in the new regulation on both a substantive and procedural level are analyzed in the comparative context of EU and U.S. merger‐control policies. In particular, the article evaluates whether the “substantial impediment to effective competition” (SIEC) test in the new regulation implies convergence with the U.S. “substantial lessening of competition” (SLC) benchmark. In this context, the article develops scenarios for convergence between EU and U.S. merger‐control policies. The EU merger process has emerged against a background of significant political and institutional development in the European Union, and this is an important explanatory element in the development of competition policy in general and for the new merger regulation in particular. It also has implications for merger strategies examined at the end of the article. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Cross-Border Mergers & Acquisitions Policy in Service Markets

We provide facts showing that in service markets: (i) restrictions on foreign direct investment (FDI) are under reform, (ii) cross-border Mergers & Acquisitions dominate as the entry mode of FDI, and (iii) there is often a high market concentration. Based on these facts, we present a model for analyzing cross-border merger and acquisition policy in liberalized service markets taking into account efficiency and market power effects. Our findings suggest that a merger policy, but not a discriminatory policy towards foreigners, seems warranted. Moreover, policies ensuring competition for domestic target firms seem warranted. In this vein, harmonization of the EU takeover regulations may particularly benefit assets owners in countries with many target firms.     

Unilateral Effects in Merger Analysis: Models,Merits, and Merger Policy

This paper models the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) unilateral effects merger policy using a sample of 192 investigations undertaken between 1993 and 2010. Statistical analysis shows that the number of significant rivals represents a reasonable structural proxy for the FTC’s merger challenge decision, although other variables, such as impediments to entry, fringe share, clear evidence of head-to-head competition between the merging firms, competitive effects’ evidence, and efficiency-related proxies, also affect the decision to challenge a merger. Some of these variables suggest that the innovations in the 2010 Merger Guidelines had already been applied in FTC merger analysis.     

Some aspects of merger control in the EC

The author elucidates the basic features of the EC Commission’s guidelines proposal for a European merger control and examines the various problems which may arise.     

Developing a Group Decision Support System for Advertising Media Evaluation: A Case in the Middle East

The importance of advertising media evaluation as a multifaceted problem is well known by both academics and practitioners. Although previous studies tried to optimize media evaluation, there still are some gaps and problems to address, particularly in areas of flexibility of models/frameworks, decision making quality, tension management, and agility of the evaluation process. Most of previous studies are based on inflexible models/frameworks that have limitations on number of criteria/alternatives they can consider and type of data they can process. A great volume of the work used arbitrary decision making; arbitrary decision making regarding criteria and media importance may reduce effectiveness of advertising campaigns. Furthermore, the academic literature offers little guidance on group decision aggregation, and tension management during decision making is neglected. Media evaluation is a time taking process and any acceleration will reduce pre-campaign costs. The main aim of this paper is to illustrate how a group decision support system (GDSS) can assist media planners to overcome mentioned problems more systematically. For this purpose, we developed a GDSS that is an integration of three well-known multi-criteria decision making techniques. With a real world case study, we illustrate the performance of the proposed GDSS. Results of our quantitative assessments indicate that the GDSS is flexible, allows decision makers to express their opinions, reduces tension among decision makers, and saves time.     

CEO Power,CEO Age and the Policy Instrument Property of State-Owned-Enterprises

In this paper, we examine the relationship between CEO power, CEO age and the efficiency of policy implementation in listed corporations controlled by each province’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) in China. We find that CEOs with more power implement policy are more efficiently. We also find that younger powerful CEOs will act more effectively than their older competitors. The reason for the difference is that younger powerful CEOs in state-owned companies are incentivized to implement their policy tasks to gain promotions or political capital. Our results are important to future SOE reform and to understanding the characteristics of SOEs as policy instruments.     

The European Commission’s New Industrial Policy in an Integrating and Globalizing World

The European Commission has launched a new industrial policy for Europe in October 2005. While manufacturing industry remains a key building block of the European economy, it faces a number of challenges—as well as opportunities—in the form of rapid technological change; increasing trade and financial integration of the world economy; and the rise of new emerging market competitors. Whilst some sectors are performing strongly, the overall industrial structure of the EU economy makes it less than ideally positioned to face these challenges. The new industrial policy articulated by the Commission is to help the European economy adapt to the new circumstances. In contrast to old policies that sought to ‘pick winners’, the new approach starts from the screening of horizontal policies and framework conditions in terms of their implications for specific industrial sectors. Second, the Commission has integrated policy by bringing more closely together different policy dimensions of key relevance to various industries. Finally, the industrial policy attempts to achieve a greater consensus over policy, through the involvement at an early stage of key stakeholders and Member States in policy making.     

A Proposal of Toolkit for GDSS Facilitators

Most group decision meetings are perceived to be extremely unproductive in terms of efficiently utilizing the participants’ time and effectively achieving the group decision meeting objectives. Indeed, group decision meetings consume a great deal of time and effort in organizations. These problems occur frequently because effective guidelines or procedures are not used. To overcome these problems, many group decision support systems (GDSS) imbed some facilitation mechanisms and are currently being used with the help of a human facilitator who guides the group members through the decision process. We propose in this paper a toolkit for GDSS facilitators that we integrate in our proposed architecture for distributed GDSS. Based on a model of the decision making processes group facilitation tasks are automated, at least partially in order to increase the ability of inexperienced facilitator to monitor and control the group decision meeting process.     

Die radikalen Steuerpläne der US-Republikaner und die Folgen für die EU

The Republican majority in the US House of Representatives is considering the introduction of a destination-based cash flow tax (DBCFT). While its global implementation has the potential to substantially increase welfare, a unilateral introduction of such a tax system raises a range of questions due to the existence of source-based taxation systems abroad. We consider the US tax plans from an EU perspective. We show that European exporters may suffer, but European firms with affiliation in the US may benefit from a switch to the DBCFT. American firms will be the likely losers of this policy. Finally, we discuss potential policy reactions by the EU and its member countries as well as legal and economic implications of possible adjustments in EU tax systems.