On economics and business ethics

Economics has an impoverished view of virtuous human behaviour in general, and corporate social responsibility in particular. We claim that this is due to a particular, albeit currently dominant approach to economics. This approach focuses on the pursuit of wealth through efficient allocation of scarce resources by 'rational' utility-maximizing economic agents and institutions, such as markets, firms and states, in the exclusive pursuit of 'efficiency'. This results in an ethic-free and often inimical approach to virtuous behaviour. However, a different approach to economics, which focuses on sustainable global resource creation and allocation, asserts virtuous responsible behaviour to be part and parcel of economic analysis and performance.     

Market failure and the existence of the state: a restatement and critique

In this article the ‘market failure’ approach to the existence of the state in market economies is restated and generalized in terms of transaction costs economizing. This approach is then criticized in that it asserts the pre-existence of societal consensus regarding efficiency versus distribution. In the presence of ex-ante distributional inequalities I suggest that distribution is a more plausible determinant of the existence and functions of the capitalist state, both theoretically and empirically. The possibility has implications on the notion of state neutrality, and on viewing the market as the ‘natural’ means of allocating resources. It also questions the very need for the existence of the market.     

Military spending,economic growth and investment: a disaggregated analysis by income group

Empirical Economics - Employing a panel vector autoregression (PVAR) methodology, the paper addresses the nexus between military expenditures and two key macroeconomic variables, namely growth...     

Green consumers and environmental policy

The present paper examines how improvements in consumers' environmental awareness influence the choice between output and emission taxes, within a framework of imperfect competition and endogenous choice of abatement level. We first show that in the absence of policy intervention, there exists a level of environmental awareness beyond which welfare is decreasing as market imperfections become more prominent relative to environmental concerns. We also confirm that both output and emission taxes are welfare superior to the free-market case. What is surprising, however, is that the welfare performance of an optimally chosen emissions tax is monotonically decreasing in consumers' environmental sensitivity, while the opposite is true for an output tax up to a certain level. At low levels of consumers' environmental awareness an emissions tax is welfare superior, but eventually, there is a level of environmental awareness beyond which an output-tax welfare dominates an emissions tax. Therefore, an emissions tax is better suited to societies that have not yet developed high levels of environmental awareness, while societies characterized by high levels of environmental awareness should prefer an output tax.     

Leviathan and Capital Tax Competition in Federations

This paper analyzes a simple model of taxation in a federal system within which policymakers are revenue–maximizing Leviathans and fiscal externalities arise not only horizontally, across the "states," but also vertically between levels of government. Such an economy is characterized by excessively high taxation in the noncooperative equilibrium. Intensifying horizontal competition, by increasing the number of states, unambiguously increases revenues (contrary to the Leviathan wisdom) but nevertheless enhances consumer welfare (consistent with the Leviathan wisdom). Revenue sharing arrangements between policymakers are shown to be—contrary to the Leviathan wisdom—Pareto improving.     

How do institutions affect corruption and the shadow economy?

This paper analyzes a simple model that captures the relationship between institutional quality, the shadow economy, and corruption. It shows that an improvement in institutional quality reduces the shadow economy and affects the corruption market. The exact relationship between corruption and institutional quality is, however, ambiguous and depends on the relative effectiveness of institutional quality in the shadow and corruption markets. The analytics also show that the shadow economy and corruption are substitutes. The predictions of the model are empirically tested and confirmed.     

EFFECTIVE DEMAND, OUTWARD INVESTMENT AND THE (THEORY OF THE) TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATION: AN EMPRICAL INVESTIGATION

That demand-side deficiencies can provide an inducement for outward investment by transnational corporations has never acquired much currency, despite its long history and the fact that existing theories ofter have implications supportive of it. Arguably a reason for this is that the idea has never been tested empirically. In this paper we provide the first such empirical test. First we critically survey and attempt to synthesize the mainstream microeconomic or supply-side theories of the TNC. Then we examine the case for a demand-side perspective, link this to the supply-side and discuss some existing indirect evidence in support of this perspective. Finally we provide a direct econometric test of the demand-side perspective, which provides clear support for it.     

Banking inefficiency in Central and Eastern European countries under a quadratic loss function

We employ a quadratic loss function using a forward-looking rational expectations model to estimate the dynamics of banking inefficiency scores in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) over the period 1998–2005. Results show that there is heterogeneity in the speed of adjustment to the long run equilibrium across countries and over time, while it appears that the recent accession to the EU has not led to an increase in the speed of adjustment, as it would be expected in light of the integration process prior to the accession. Ownership asserts certain influence on the speed at which banks correct past-period inefficiency.     

Estimating Quality‐adjusted Price Changes: Method and Application to VCRs

This paper uses scanner data to generate estimates of quality‐adjusted price changes for video‐recorders. We use hedonic regressions to derive estimates of the changing worth of each quality component. These are then applied to weighted changes in the mix of quality attributes of products to derive estimates of quality‐adjusted price (QAP) changes. The data source used is electronic‐point‐of‐sale (EPOS) scanner data that are available for a wide range of goods. This study provides an example of how such methods can be more widely applied. The estimates of QAP changes correspond to constant‐utility, (hedonic) cost‐of‐living indexes defined in economic theory as the ratio of expenditure functions at constant utility allowing for changing prices and characteristics of goods. This method is proposed as an improvement on the existing direct method , which takes its estimates directly from the coefficients associated with 'time dummies' in a hedonic regression. We finally undertake a matching process, akin to that used by statistical offices, and compare the results. Direct comparisons with RPI estimates and these hedonic approaches are not easy since the approaches use quite different data sets. Our replication of a procedure akin to that used for the RPI on the scanner data set provides insights into sources of potential bias.