Convergence,the “tax-state” and economic dynamics

Convergence, the “Tax State” and Economic Dynamics. — The paper analyses the welfare/efficiency relationship of taxation and empirically tests the relationship between taxes and economic dynamics for OECD countries. Since taxes are only one of the determinants of economic growth, in a first step the influence of other sources of or impediments to economic growth is analysed. This general model - which contains hypotheses about catching-up, the technological gap, human capital and inflation - is tested against a specific model in which the specific interest is in the role of taxes. For the group of the most important OECD countries taxation turns out to be growth-retarding.     

Corporatism,technological gaps and growth in oecd countries

Summary The main purpose of the present approach is to empirically demonstrate that the hypothesis "the corporatist economies have outperformed others in the 1970s" should be qualified. To do so, it is first necessary to account for the impact of technological catch-up processes which after World War II in Western industrial countries have been of central importance. Since the then existing technological gaps have narrowed in the course of time, catching-up potentials also have decreased, and thus economic growth. The analysis of corporatism led to the hypothesis that economies which are competitively organized have done as well as the corporatist economies. The true losers being those countries which are neither characterized by a high degree of national consensus nor by a highly competitive structure. The empirical results support this hypothesis for the 1970s when large supply shocks and monetary disturbances hit the world economy.

---

Zusammenfassung Korporativismus, technologische Lücken und Wachstum in OECD-L?ndern. - In dieser Untersuchung wird empirisch gezeigt, da? das Wirtschaftswachstum in den Industriel?ndern in den sechziger und siebziger Jahren eine Funktion von technologischen und institutionellen Faktoren war. Unter Berücksichtigung technologischer Aufholprozesse führt die Analyse des Korporativismus zu der These, da? die wettbewerblich organisierten L?nder zumindest ebenso schnell gewachsen sein dürften wie die korporativistischen Volkswirtschaften, w?hrend die eigentlichen Verlierer jene L?nder sind, die weder durch ein hohes Ma? an nationaler übereinstimmung noch durch eine stark wettbewerblich ausgerichtete Struktur gekennzeichnet sind. Die empirischen Ergebnisse stützen diese Thesen für die siebziger Jahre, in denen die Weltwirtschaft starken angebotsbedingten Ver?nderungen und monet?ren St?rungen ausgesetzt war.

---

Résumé Corporativisme, ?technological gap? et croissance dans les pays OCDE. - Dans cet article, l’auteur démontre empiriquement que la croissance en pays industriels dans les années soixante et soixante-dix était une fonction des facteurs technologiques et institutionnels. En considérant les processus technologiques ?catching-up?, l’analyse menait à l’hypothèse que des pays organisés compétitivement auraient eu au moins la même performance que les économies corporativistes. Les vrais perdants seraient les pays qui n’étaient pas caractérisés ni par un haut degré de consensus national ni par des structures strictement compétitives. Les résultats empiriques supportent ces hypothèses pour les années soixante-dix quand des grands chocs et des perturbances monétaires touchaient l’économie mondiale.

---

Resumen Corporativismo, brecha tecnológica y crecimiento en los países de la OECD. - En este trabajo se demuestra empíricamente que el crecimiento de los países industrializados en los a?os sesenta y setenta se debe a factures tecnológicos e institucionales. Tomando en cuenta el impacto del proceso de alcanzar la frontera tecnológica se deriva la tesis que países en los cuales rige la competencia deberfan haberse desarrollado al menos a la par de los países corporativistas. Los países rezagados serfan aquellos que no se caracterizan ni por un alto grado de consenso nacional ni por estructuras competitivas. Los resultados apoyan la tesis para los a?os setenta, cuando la economía mundial sufrió importantes shocks de oferta y problemas monetarios.

     

Towards an attention‐based view of technology decisions

The importance of technology decisions is widely acknowledged in both research and practice. However, we know little about how companies structure technology decisions from an organizational point of view and how attention is distributed in the course of the decision process in order to identify, process, and transfer information between the organizational units involved. Using the attention‐based view of the firm and 14 qualitative case studies, we present five approaches for organizing technology decisions: (1) centralized decision‐making, (2) busy information bee, (3) double‐blind analysis, (4) moderated expert panel, and (5) coterie approach. On this ground, this paper introduces a new, attention‐based view on technology decisions, which improves the theoretical understanding of organizations and provides guidelines for practitioners in choosing an appropriate organizational configuration in this regard.     

Terminal Value,Accounting Numbers,and Inflation

In a 2008 article published in this journal, Michael Bradley and Gregg Jarrell argue that the well‐known Gordon‐Shapiro (henceforth “GS”) model for calculating terminal values does not properly account for the effects of inflation. Bradley and Jarrell suggest modifying the growth factor in the standard GS model by adding an additional term to the nominal growth rate that reflects the positive effect of inflation on the value of existing assets. In this article, the authors support the original Gordon‐Shapiro method for calculating terminal values by showing what they believe to be an oversight of the Bradley‐Jarrell critique. According to the authors, the disagreement stems from the use of fundamentally different assumptions about the effect of inflation on the capital investment required to sustain a business. Although Bradley‐Jarrell agree with the authors that intrinsic value is the discounted value of future free cash flows, their assumptions about capital investment effectively lead them to conclusions similar to those practitioners who attempt to value companies on the basis of discounted future accounting earnings. Despite much common practice, the GS model was meant to be applied to free cash flows, not accounting earnings. And for companies with substantial capital investment, the differences between accounting earnings that involve accruals and free cash flows can be very large.     

Exploring the Impact of Customer Satisfaction on Food Retailers' Evolution: Managerial Lessons From Austria

Many studies have shown that customer satisfaction affects customer behavior and loyalty. There are, however, relatively few studies that examine the impact of customer satisfaction on store repatronage behavior by store-type choice. This study examines why Austrian consumers choose a certain store type (i.e., supermarket or bakery) for purchases in a particular product category (i.e., baked goods). Moreover, it assesses the impact of customer satisfaction on customer loyalty (i.e., the repatronage intention). The study found that customers valued different attributes for each store type. It also suggested that customer satisfaction and customers' intention to recommend varied by store type. Additionally, the bakery customers' tendency to spend more is positively related to their satisfaction level. Managerial implications for both types of stores are provided.