How effective are level-based R&D tax credits? Evidence from the Netherlands

This article examines the impact of the R&D fiscal incentive programme on R&D by Dutch firms. Taking a factor demand approach, we measure the elasticity of firm R&D capital accumulation to its user cost. Econometric models are estimated using a rich unbalanced panel of firm data covering the period 1996 to 2004 with firm specific R&D user costs varying with tax incentives. Using the estimated user cost elasticity, we perform a cost–benefit analysis of the R&D incentive programme. We find some evidence of additionality suggesting that the level based programme of R&D incentives in the Netherlands is effective in stimulating firms’ investment in R&D. However, the hypothesis of crowding out can be rejected only for small firms. The analysis also indicates that the level based nature of the fiscal incentive scheme leads to a substantial social deadweight loss.     

Real option analysis for effects of emission permit banking on investment under abatement cost uncertainty

The present paper analyzes the investment effects of emission trading scheme (ETS) when emission permits are bankable and there is technological uncertainty with regard to the abatement cost. A real option model is employed to accommodate irreversibility of investment and cost uncertainty. In the absence of abatement cost uncertainty, a bankable ETS reduces a firm's incentive for environmental investment, because the firm can utilize the banked permits for future compliance which act as substitutes for abatement investment. However, when cost uncertainty is prevalent, investment may reduce the opportunity cost of irreversible investment under the banking system, thereby increasing a firm's investment incentive. The condition is derived under which a bankable ETS provides higher investment incentives than a non-bankable ETS does.     

An evaluation of incentive regulation: Corrections

This note re-estimates our model of the determinants and impacts of cost component incentive regulation using an improved data set which avoids double-counting firm observations. It also tests alternative specifications of the relationships. While cost component incentive regulation improves engineering efficiency (heat rates), it does not improve economic efficiency. Thus, our earlier findings are not altered by the smaller data set or by model respecification.     

Toward a combined merchant-regulatory mechanism for electricity transmission expansion

Electricity transmission pricing and transmission grid expansion have received increasing attention in recent years. There are two disparate approaches to transmission investment: one employs the theory based on long-run financial rights (LTFTR) to transmission (merchant approach), while the other is based on the incentive-regulation hypothesis (regulatory approach). In this paper we consider the elements that could combine the merchant and regulatory approaches in a setting with price-taking electricity generators and loads. The monopoly transmission firm (Transco) is regulated through benchmark or price regulation to provide long-term investment incentives. The two-part tariff approach used can be analyzed analytically only for well-behaved cost and demand functions. We explore a series of simplified transmission grids to argue that in a variety of circumstances those functions could have reasonable economic properties. The results suggest directions for further research to explore the properties of the cost functions and implications for design of practical incentive mechanisms and the integration with merchant investment in organized markets with LTFTRs.     

Public Monopoly,Mixed Oligopoly and Productive Efficiency

In general, the introduction of competition into the public sector seems to lead to higher cost‐efficiency in service production. However, there are examples of substantial cost increases in some areas. In this paper, using a mixed oligopoly model, we investigate the effects of deregulation on the cost‐reducing incentives of a public firm. Our results show that a firm that is a public monopoly has greater incentive to conduct cost‐reducing investment than a public firm within mixed oligopoly market.     

Dominant Firm Pricing with Competitive Entry and Regulation: The Case of IntraLATA Toll

In this paper, we develop a generalized model of a dominant firm-competitive fringe industry in which products are differentiated, costs vary across suppliers, and the dominant firm is subject to alternative regulatory regimes. The model yields an equilibrium condition that can be tested empirically using data on Bell Operating Companies' pricing of intraLATA toll telephone service. Estimation of a reduced form price equation provides strong support for the theoretical model. Of particular interest, the results suggest that dominant firm (Bell Operating Company) toll prices are driven down by the presence of actual and potential fringe competitors (interexchange carriers) when entry is authorized by the state. Additionally, the results fail to provide evidence that the introduction of incentive regulation or price-cap regulation has reduced intraLATA toll prices.     

Separation of Regulatory Powers When Contracts Are Incomplete

The investment of a regulated firm affects the service/good provided on many dimensions. Should an integrated regulator take care of them all? Or is it better to have separate regulators responsible for them? We analyze the effect of the separation of regulatory powers on the regulated firm's ex ante incentive to invest in a “cooperative” innovation. The effects of the innovation are not verifiable and the cost of investing is sunk, hence, there is a problem of hold‐up. We find that when the innovation produces opposite effects the ex ante firm's incentive to invest is larger in the case of separation than in the case of integrated regulation. We also stress the risk of over‐investment that the separation of regulatory powers may induce. We maintain that along with classical incentive regulation—which mainly provides incentives for the firm to be efficient—the separation of regulatory powers may play a role in providing an incentive for cooperative innovations.     

The Welfare Effects of Incentive Schemes

This paper computes the change in welfare associated with the introduction of incentives. We calculate by how much the welfare gains of increased output due to incentives outweigh workers' disutility from increased effort. We accomplish this by studying the use of incentives by a firm in the check-clearing industry. Using this firm's production records, we model and estimate the worker's dynamic effort decision problem. We find that the firm's incentive scheme has a large effect on productivity, raising it by 12% over the sample period for the average worker. Using our parameter estimates, we show that the cost of increased effort due to incentives is equal to the dollar value of a 5% rise in productivity. Welfare is measured as the output produced minus the cost of effort; hence, the net increase in the average worker's welfare due to the introduction of the firm's bonus plan is 7%. Under a first-best scheme, we find that the net increase in welfare is 9%.     

COMPETITION, PARALLEL IMPORTS AND COST-REDUCING INNOVATION

Incorporating parallel imports (PI), we develop a two‐country two‐firm model which relates to the incentives for cost‐reducing innovation. We show that PI may facilitate or inhibit the manufacturers' incentives to innovate. In particular, PI could encourage both firms' innovations. The difference between the manufacturer's profits under successful innovation and failed innovation is either a U‐shaped curve or an inverted U‐shaped curve in terms of the cost of engaging in PI. As these differences reflect the manufacturers' incentive to innovate, the variations in R&D investment depend on transportation cost, and firms' marginal costs before and after successful innovations.     

员工股权激励对中小企业创新会产生补充的促进效应吗？

高管与核心技术员工作用于创新的不同过程,同时也是股权激励计划的主要激励对象,两者股权激励的互动效应对创新的影响值得探讨。选取2009—2015年成功实施股权激励的深A上市中小板与创业板公司为研究对象,考察员工股权激励对高管股权激励在中小企业创新中的影响及其作用机制。研究结果表明：实施股权激励计划能够显著增加企业研发投入与创新产出;相较于高管,核心技术员工股权激励强度越大,企业创新数量越多、质量越高;高管股权激励降低了创新转化效率。进一步地,融资支持效应和人才激励效应是员工股权激励补充促进创新的重要机制;代理成本在高管股权激励与研发投入关系中起遮掩作用。     

Competition and regulation with product differentiation

We consider a market for differentiated products, where one good is supplied by a regulated monopolist and competitive firms operate in an unregulated segment. In this setting we investigate the issue of whether to allow the monopolist to diversify into the unregulated segment by owning a competitive firm. Under asymmetric cost information, if goods are substitutes a diversified monopolist, which exaggerates its costs in the regulated segment to charge a higher regulated price, stimulates the demand for the competitive affiliate. This strengthens the firm??s incentive to inflate costs, since doing so generates a positive informational spillover to its profits in the competitive segment. Consequently, a regime of separation, which prevents the firm from operating in the competitive segment, is welfare-enhancing. Conversely, with complements, cost exaggeration in the regulated monopoly reduces the demand and harms profits in the competitive segment, and allowing the monopolist to diversify into the competitive segment therefore generates countervailing incentives, which weaken the firm??s interest in cost manipulation and improve social welfare.     

Collusion Under Asymmetric Information: The Role of the Correlation

We consider the regulation of a duopoly under incomplete information. When firms act noncooperatively, the regulator uses yardstick mechanisms to bridge his informational gap at no cost. However, this provides the firms with an incentive to collude.
We interpret the correlation as a measure of the congruence/divergence between individual and coalitional incentives. Under positive correlation, these incentives are aligned: the threat of collusion forces the regulator to distort the allocation. Under negative correlation, these incentives are opposed: the regulator can, sometimes, exploit this conflict of interest inside the coalition to eradicate the stakes of collusion at no cost.     

Housing Subsidies and Work Incentives in Great Britain

The relationship between housing costs, wages and transfer programmes is complex yet helps determine the incentive to work for individuals in low income or high housing cost households. We estimate a static discrete choice labour supply model that allows for housing benefit programme participation, using samples of married women and unmarried women drawn from Great Britain Family Resources Surveys 1994/5–97/8. We find women are quite responsive to labour supply incentives and that housing benefit income has similar incentive effects to earned income which suggests any 'stigma' is small. Our analysis is complemented by simulating housing benefit and direct rent subsidy reforms.     

创新环境激励与企业成长:基于中部创新型企业的实证

从国内外科技型企业成长与激励的理论综述入手,通过对我国中部地区128家创新型企业的问卷调查,对创新型企业成长的外部创新环境激励模型进行了假设验证,揭示了科技项目引导、产业技术政策、科技金融支持、科技奖励与知识产权保护,以及区域创新体系建设5个方面的创新环境因素对企业成长的激励效应。研究发现,政府科技项目的合理导向、企业技术战略联盟以及功能完善的技术市场是促进创新型企业快速成长的最重要外部因素。     

Asymmetric Decentralization,Intergovernmental Transfers,and Expenditure Policies of Local Governments

Although China’s asymmetric fiscal decentralization system has been criticized for many years, there have been few studies giving direct evidence of its negative incentives on local government spending policies. By introducing the mechanism of asymmetric decentralization and fiscal transfers to the objective function of local government, this paper studies the incentive effects of asymmetric decentralization and fiscal transfers on spending policies of local governments, and uses the provincial panel data to carry out an empirical test. The conclusion shows that the asymmetric decentralization significantly weakens the incentives of local government to increase social expenditure, and as a solution to asymmetric decentralization, fiscal transfers fail to play a good role. Due to the relatively large income effect, the financing mechanism of fiscal transfers not only significantly reduces the incentives of local government to provide social public goods, but also weakens the constraint effect of fiscal competition on expenditure policies of local governments because of the increase in the relative cost. Although the distribution mechanism of fiscal transfers has a significant positive incentive to local government in regions where the net inflow of fiscal resources is more than zero, because of common pooling effects, the comprehensive effects of fiscal transfers in the distribution of incentives of local governments to provide social public goods are negative in all regions.     

高管过度激励、所有权性质与企业国际化战略

文章采用中国制造业上市公司的数据讨论高管薪酬激励和股权激励对企业国际化程度的影响。研究证实,由于边际递减效应在一定程度上形成所谓的过度激励,中国上市公司高管股权激励与企业国际化程度之间表现为倒U形关系;进一步研究发现,国有和民营上市公司薪酬激励和股权激励在促使企业高管开展国际化经营方面的作用迥然相异。     

Ownership structure,board composition and the market for corporate control in the UK: an empirical analysis

This paper analyses the board composition and ownership structures of a sample of companies that have been acquired and those of a matching control sample that have not. We find significant governance differences between acquired firms and the control sample. Firms with the following characteristics were more likely to be acquired: they had the same person acting as CEO and chair, a higher proportion of non-executive directors, larger institutional shareholdings and higher director shareholdings. An analysis of small firms also found evidence of higher CEO shareholdings. We also find that treating all take-overs as a single group leads to a model mis-specification which does not identify the incentive effects of board and CEO shareholdings present in non-hostile acquisitions. These results are consistent with two agency-derived hypotheses, financial incentives and effective monitoring. We also find that targets exhibit lower growth potential but do not have worse accounting performance.     

Non-point source regulation — A self-reporting mechanism

Information feasible regulatory mechanisms (that do not require the regulator to acquire firm level information) have been proposed long ago for stochastic non-point emission problems. These mechanisms do not take polluter cooperation and firm entry–exit incentives simultaneously into account, nor are these issues addressed in an informationally efficient way. In this paper we propose an informationally feasible self-reporting mechanism that is robust to cooperation among polluters while giving participating firms correct abatement incentives as well as giving entry–exit incentives that are correct to a first order approximation.     

Technological change and the vertical organization of industries

The vertical scope of a firm, that is, which components or segments of the production processes are kept in–house and which are outsourced, is variously considered as depending on cost and/or technological conditions. Most of the literature focuses on the incentives for an individual firm facing exogenous competition and technological opportunities. In this paper we consider the problem from the perspective of the whole industry: in what respect does firm organizational behavior depend on the industry technological evolution and aggregate structure, and how does innovation and organizational behavior affect the industry structure. We build an evolutionary simulation model of an industry where competitors decide the number of internally produced components. We relate the industry average value of market outsourcing to the technological conditions prevalent in the industry. The results from the model shed light on a number of (apparently) contradictory suggestions in the economic and management literature.     

Catching-Up Investment without Regulatory Commitment

This paper analyses a regulated firms incentives to undertake catching-up investments when the firm has private information about the initial technology and the regulator is unable to commit himself to incentive contracts prior to the firms investment decision. In the absence of commitment power, the firm takes into account that the investment decision may serve as a signal to the regulator about the firms initial technology. Any pure strategy equilibrium of the signaling game is shown to be pooling in the sense that the efficient type mimics the inefficient type by investing. By not following this strategy, the efficient type reveals its efficiency to the regulator, who responds by inducing the firm to produce without rents. Restricting attention to undefeated pooling equilibria, the level of investment is shown to be lower than the first-best level.