Determinants of transfer pricing aggressiveness: Empirical evidence from Australian firms

This study examines the major determinants of transfer pricing aggressiveness. Based on a hand-collected sample of 183 publicly-listed Australian firms for the 2009 year, our regression results show that firm size, profitability, leverage, intangible assets, and multinationality are significantly positively associated with transfer pricing aggressiveness after controlling for industry-sector effects. Our additional regression results also indicate that firms augment their transfer pricing aggressiveness through the joint effects of intangible assets and multinationality.     

The Talmudic Doctrine of "The Benefit of a Pleasure": Psychological Well-Being in Talmudic Literature

A bstract .   In this article, we attempt to analyze the Talmudic notion of well-being in the light of modern hedonic psychology. First, we examine the thoughts of Hebrew "wisdom" and Greek " sophia " concerning the phenomenon of happiness. We then discuss the Talmudic doctrine of "optimality," a concept similar to that of the Pareto improvement. This is followed by a discourse deemed to be of extraordinary significance—the idea of "mutual benefit," which may be described as "super optimum." Thereafter, the doctrine of the "Benefit of a Pleasure" is demonstrated to be a "pleasure-measure" of reciprocal and nonreciprocal happiness. Finally, it is argued, that although Plato, according to Professor Lowry, detailed precise "trade-offs" between degrees of pleasure, pain, and time, it was applied to "moral values" only, whereas the Talmudists posited the existence of a "psychoeconomic" category, in which pleasure itself is equated with money.     

Work and Life Integration: Organizational,Cultural, and Individual Perspectives – Edited by Ellen Ernst Kossek and Susan J. Lambert Work‐Life Balance in the 21st Century – Edited by Diane M. Houston

Books reviewed: Work and Life Integration: Organizational, Cultural, and Individual Perspectives edited by Ellen Ernst Kossek and Susan J. Lambert. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ and London, 2005, xxviii + 570 pp., ISBN 0 8058 4616 6, $42.50, paper. Work‐Life Balance in the 21st Century edited by Diane M. Houston. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK, 2005, xv + 271 pp., ISBN 1 4039 2062 1, £50.00.     

How Should the Allocation of Resources Adjust to the Baby Bust?

We analyze the impact of a drop in fertility on the optimal allocation of resources in an overlapping generations economy where old workers care about leisure. We also characterize optimal dynamics and study the decentralization of the optimum by means of inter‐generational transfers and/or public debt. We conclude that the policy recommendations of postponing retirement is fragile and depend on preferences and technologies. Also, even when the optimal adjustment of public debt goes into the expected direction in the long run—i.e., public debt should decrease—this may not be the case during the transition.     

The Global System of Finance

A bstract .   In the last decades, revolutionary changes in financial markets, instruments, and institutions have stimulated empirical and theoretical investigations into the interaction of the financial and the "real" side of economic systems. While a considerable body of empirical investigations seems to provide evidence of positive correlations between stock market development and economic growth, there is no consensus in other social sciences as to whether there are two-way linkages, and if so, how to conceive a possible mechanism of interaction. Particularly, the hypergrowth and ubiquity of financial markets has triggered controversial debates on how to understand today's economic landscape. With the objective of clarifying the relationship between finance and economy, this article restructures the present debate through the lenses of Talcott Parsons's and Niklas Luhmann's theories of social systems. Basic system-theoretical ideas on social aspects of finance and economy as well as on uncertainty and risk hint at new insights into the global system of finance that might go far beyond explanatory models of causality.     

Productivity growth and biased technological change: Credit banks in Japan

This paper investigates the productivity change of Japanese credit banks with a Malmquist index and the input technological bias during 2000–2006. Our results indicate that the traditional growth accounting method, which assumes Hicks neutral technological change, is not appropriate for analyzing changes in productivity. Our analysis unambiguously shows that management of Shinkin banks has to be improved. These must be based on the improvement of technical efficiency and/or technological change, emulating the procedures of the best-practice banks, i.e., those banks with Malmquist productivity scores higher than one and simultaneously with technical efficiency and technological change higher than one.     

A performance analysis of participating life insurance contracts

Traditional life insurance products, in particular participating life insurance contracts, are often criticized. Their performance is often said to be poor compared to other investment alternatives. Interestingly, this perception appears to persist although very little research has been conducted into the performance of participating life insurance contracts. But are participating life insurance contracts actually bad for policyholders? We conduct a performance analysis based on contracts offered in the German market, in order to provide evidence to support decision making by policyholders.