Lobbying,political competition and the welfare effect of campaign contribution tax

This paper develops a probabilistic voting model in which a single lobby group commits campaign contributions to parties, contingent on the policy position the party adopts. Parties may have different propensities for diverting campaign funds towards rents. We show that a party that skims more from contributions mobilises fewer uninformed voters but places more value on receiving greater contributions. Further, the contributions and vote share of the party increases with the distance between the lobby's preferred policy and the median voter's ideal policy. Finally, we show that the equilibrium policy is between the median voter's ideal point and the lobby's preferred policy. Such an equilibrium policy does not maximise the aggregate social welfare due to the distortionary nature of lobbying. However, when an appropriate contribution tax is introduced to limit this distortion, social welfare will be maximised.     

Corporate Lobbying, Regulatory Conduct and the Porter Hypothesis

Michael Porter, the influential Harvard management guru, has promoted the idea that compliance with stricter environmental regulations can afford secondary benefits to firms through improved product design, innovation, corporate morale and in other ways. Once these secondary benefits are factored, the net cost of compliance is argued to be lower than conventionally thought and may even be negative. Whilst environmental economists have rejected the Porter Hypothesis as being based on excessively optimistic expectations of the likely size of such secondary benefits the underlying ideas do enjoy significant credence in the business community. In the context of a lobbying model of regulatory policy-making we argue that the EPA should change the way it conducts regulatory policy to take account of Porter's views – even if it knows those views to be misguided. The model serves to illustrate the more general point that fashions in management thinking can be expected to impact the optimal conduct of regulatory policy.     

The nonobserved economy in the European Union

To better understand the share of the nonobserved economy (NOE) in the European Union, especially on the PIIGS, we estimate, through the multiple indicators multiple causes model, the path between 1980 and 2013. The model includes (i) the tax burden (disaggregated into direct and indirect taxes), a proxy of regulation burden, the unemployment rate and self-employment as causes of the NOE economy; (ii) the GDP and the labour force participation ratio as indicators of the NOE economy. In particular, the estimated weight of NOE as a percentage of official GDP was always higher in the PIIGS group.     

Tax harmonization and tax competition in the European Union: Lessons from Switzerland

This paper presents empirical evidence on individual income tax competition in Switzerland. Tax competition has some influence on the spread of people with high income over the cantons, and it is partly capitalised in dwelling rents. However, it neither leads to a collapse of public good supply nor makes redistribution by the fiscal authorities impossible. Thus, if tax competition works well in Switzerland there is no reason why it should have disastrous effects in a future European Union.     

Patterns of innovation diffusion and technological competition in Portuguese manufacturing and service industries

This article uses data from the Portuguese Community Innovation Survey (CIS III) to analyse the inter‐industry heterogeneity in the diffusion of innovations and level of technological competition in Portuguese manufacturing and service industries. The industries are classified with reference to the relationship between the level of participation in innovation and the strategies of innovative firms. Methods of multivariate statistics are used to synthesize the data and to group the observations into subsets. Four distinctive innovation patterns are identified, defined along the following dimensions: output‐orientation of innovation, importance of disembodied innovation, role of technologically advanced innovation and level of innovation opportunities. It is also found that high levels of technological competition tend to occur in sectors with relatively low dimension, productivity and overall investment.     

中国企业的需求导向创新实证研究

This paper analyzes the interrelationship among competition, market size and innovation by using the data from total 37 industries in China within a simultaneous equations model. It finds that: (1) Competition and innovation are mutually-enhanced, and this is the consequence of the long-run Darwinian effect in competitive market; (2) Market size and innovation are also positively correlated, because firms’ innovation is essentially demand-oriented (market-oriented), and innovation impelling technological progress will finally increase market size; (3) Between competition and market size, the effect of competition on market size is ambiguous, while the reverse is significantly positive. The policy implication of this paper is as follows: under the condition that China has especially huge market size and market demand, the industry policy of intensifying competition can stimulate firms’ persistent demand-oriented innovation.      

Does market competition promote innovation efficiency in China’s high-tech industries?

ABSTRACT

Despite extensive discussion about the relationship between market competition and innovation performance, the impact of market competition on the innovation efficiency of high-technology industries in a transitional economy is still unclear. The article is based on panel data of 17 subsectors of China’s high-tech industry spanning the 2001–2016 period. Using stochastic the frontier analysis model, we empirically test the impact of market competition on two-stage innovation efficiency from the perspective of the industry. The results indicate that market competition and firm scale have positive and significant effects on the efficiency of two-stage innovation, the effects of industry export intensity and government intervention on R&D efficiency are negative, but the effects are different for the efficiency of the commercialisation of technology. Based on the results of the empirical analysis, this paper compares the trends and the differences between R&D efficiency and commercialisation efficiency, and then uses cluster analysis to reclassify China’s high-tech industries into three categories, thus revealing the disconnect and imbalance within China’s high-tech industries. At the end of the article, we present some possible policy recommendations.     

The Commission and the Council Presidency in the European Union: Strategic interactions and legislative powers

This paper develops spatial, game-theoretical models of European Union (EU) policy-making that include the rotating Council Presidency as one of the main actors. Previous such models have typically ignored the Presidency's role, even though it is instrumental in shepherding the Commission's proposals through the legislative process. We study whether the Commission takes the Presidency's preferences into account when formulating proposals, and whether the Presidency's role limits or expands the Commission's powers. We find that even though the Commission has lost powers as a result of the introduction and extension of the codecision procedure, as shown in the literature, it maintains a degree of legislative power by strategically using the rotating Presidency. In particular the Commission times its proposals. It formulates a proposal on an issue when the Presidency is close to itself on that issue.     

Evaluating the Relative Innovative Position of European Union Member Countries: An Empirical Analysis

This paper aims to provide empirical evidence about the relative positions of European Union member states on innovation and, more specifically, on innovation in manufacturing. These positions were obtained from the aggregation of different innovation variables using the principal component analysis. We do not provide, from the statistical viewpoint, a synthetic indicator, even if, from the economic perspective, the information we obtained was similar to what such an indicator would provide. Our unit of analysis is the sector in each country, what we will term ‘country‐sector’, covering both innovative and non‐innovative firms.     

Making sense of the sharing economy: a business model innovation perspective

ABSTRACT

The emergence of a sharing revolution is leading to a new societal system of collaboration enabled by digital technologies. Although sharing-based initiatives are re-shaping established organisational practices and innovating traditional business models (BMs), existing research fails in grasping the phenomenon's multiple facets. This study aims at making sense of the Sharing Economy (SE) by shedding light on how startups embed the social trend of sharing and leverage digital technologies to develop innovative BMs. We attempt to solve the current theory-practice misalignment by proposing an original framework, definition, and classification of SE startups. The study presents a cluster analysis on 196 SE startups. We argue that SE startups group into five clusters: (i) pseudo-sharing; (ii) gig economy; (iii) crowd-based economy; (iv) pooling economy; and (v) P2P rental. This study contributes to positioning the SE from both a conceptual and an empirical perspective, interpreting the SE phenomenon from the theoretical lenses of BM Innovation, and classifying it through the unit of analysis of startups, intended as empirical vehicles and manifestation of the phenomenon.     

从美、日、欧经验探索我国低碳经济实现路径

低碳经济是一种全新的经济发展模式,其实质是能源高效利用、清洁能源开发,核心是能源技术、产业结构和制度创新以及人类生存发展观念的根本性转变。首先,通过文献回顾,系统阐述了美、日、欧典型经济发达国家关于低碳经济的相关政策和发展经验;其次简单探讨了当前我国发展低碳经济困难;最后从宣传、经济政策和低碳技术体系三方面探讨了中国发展低碳经济的路线图。     

Special interest politics: Contribution schedules vs. Nash bargaining

The article compares two models of lobby influence on policy choice: The Grossman and Helpman (1994) contribution‐schedules model and a negotiation between the lobbies and the government summarized by a Nash‐bargaining function. The literature uses the models interchangeably because they imply the same equilibrium policy. We show that particular assumptions about bargaining power and disagreement utility in the Nash‐bargaining solution are required for the models to lead to the same equilibrium payments and utilities. This implies that the models usually imply different sets of lobbies if lobby formation is an endogenous decision, such that the equilibrium policies also differ.     

Delay determinants of European Banking Union implementation

Most countries in the European Union (EU) delay the transposition of European Commission (EC) directives, which aim at reforming banking supervision, resolution, and deposit insurance. We compile a systematic overview of these delays to investigate if they result from strategic considerations of governments conditional on the state of their financial, regulatory, and political systems. Transposition delays pertaining to the three Banking Union directives differ considerably across the 28 EU members. Bivariate regression analyses suggest that existing national bank regulation and supervision drive delays the most. Political factors are less relevant. These results are qualitatively insensitive to alternative estimation methods and lag structures. Multivariate analyses highlight that well-stocked deposit insurance schemes speed-up the implementation of capital requirements, banking systems with many banks are slower in implementing new bank rescue and resolution rules, and countries with a more intensive sovereign-bank nexus delay the harmonization of EU deposit insurance more.     

Lobbying Bureaucrats*

We study how interest group lobbying of the bureaucracy affects policy outcomes and how it changes the legislature's willingness to delegate decision‐making authority to the bureaucracy. We extend the standard model of delegation to account for interest group influence during the implementation stage of policy. We analyze how the decision to delegate changes when the bureaucratic agent is subject to external influence. The optimal degree of delegation as well as the extent to which interest groups influence policy outcomes differ depending on whether the system of government is characterized by unified or divided control. The result is a comparative theory of bureaucratic lobbying.     

Out in the cold? Iceland's trade performance outside the European Union and European Monetary Union

Although entering currency (and customs) unions involve bothcosts and benefits, an increasing body of research is findingthat the benefits—in terms of international trade creation—areremarkably large. Focusing simply on the European Monetary Union(EMU) rather than the broad range of currency unions studiedby other authors, we find that the trade impact of EMU is smaller,but still substantial. Our findings suggest that the Iceland'strade could increase by about 60% and that the trade-to-GDPratio could rise by 12 percentage points should Iceland jointhe European Union and EMU.     

Environmental innovation policy and international competition

We consider one polluting industry in an open economy. The national government implements a policy of industrial pollution control, by inducing appropriate technological innovation to reduce toxic emissions. The emission-reducing innovations are developed through firm-specific costly investments. Under different hypotheses on market structure (perfect competition, Bertrand and Cournot oligopoly), international competition forces the national government to subsidize innovation. The appropriate subsidy scheme varies according to the information available to the government and according to market structure. If information is asymmetric, the subsidy must include the information premium necessary to separate different types of firms.     

Knowledge externalities,innovation and growth in European countries: the role of institutions

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the linkages between institutions and economic growth in the European context and highlights innovation as the intermediate variable that drives this interplay. Building on the literature in the evolutionary approach to the economics of innovation and in the economic growth theory with a political economic perspective, we assume that knowledge externalities can fully take place where institutions guarantee a level playing field in the access to knowledge. We estimate the effects of a set of relevant institutional variables on the growth rate of technological knowledge and per capita GDP for a sample of European countries. The empirical analysis confirms that institutions that tend to equalise opportunities to innovate significantly amplify the impact of an exogenous increase in the knowledge base on the growth rate of per capita GDP.     

Interdependency and adjustments in the European Union

Since the euro was launched, divergences in European economies'evolutions have been more significant than generally expected. The article, based on a multinational macroeconomic model describing the interdependence between 14 European countries, examines the role played by relative‐price adjustment mechanisms and difficulties inherent in asymmetric evolutions.

The efficiency of relative‐price adjustment mechanisms seems limited and, even in the most flexible countries, the return to equilibrium is slow and still incomplete after 10 years. Differences in relative‐price adjustment mechanisms remain a source of asymmetries between member countries. Extra‐European exchanges have a stabilizing role which is uneven on account of trade openness and price elasticities. A decrease of the world demand and a depreciation of the euro, still have an important impact with significant disparities between countries.

Several lessons can be drawn in terms of economic policy. A more restrictive European fiscal policy proves more costly in the long run in Germany and the Netherlands on account of the weakness of price compensation effects. On the contrary, thanks to their greater flexibility, the United Kingdom and Sweden can offset an initial negative shock more rapidly. The wage dimension in the definition of a good European policy mix has also to be examined.     

欧盟促进农村社会化科技创新的政策措施

欧盟农村发展计划及其农村发展行动联合计划(Leader计划),有效促进了欧盟农村创新体系各主体之间的合作,推动了农村社会化创新,是欧盟推动农村发展的一种创新陛政策实践。通过对欧盟Leader计划、欧盟农村发展计划及推动农村社会创新的政策措施等进行研究分析,提出了推动我国农村社会化创新的建议:充分发挥农民的主观能动性,推进农村社会创新;利用经济刺激手段,提高农产品质量;实施生态补偿,引导农民保护环境;建立公私合作伙伴机制,促进农村社会化创新。