Asymmetric FDI and tax-treaty bargaining: theory and evidence

Tax treaties are often viewed as a mechanism for eliminating tax competition, however, this approach ignores the need for bargaining over the treaty's terms. This paper focuses on how bargaining can affect the withholding taxes set under the treaty. In a simple framework, we develop hypotheses about patterns in treaty tax rates. A key determinant for these patterns is the relative size of bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) activity. In plausible situations, more asymmetric countries will negotiate treaties with higher tax rates. This theory is then tested using 1992 data from US and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) bilateral tax treaties. Overall, the data supports the prediction that greater asymmetric FDI activity increases the negotiated tax rates.     

Selection dynamics and adaptive behavior without much information

This paper uses the experimental method to investigate behavior in a coordination game when the information available to subjects is limited to their feasible choices and their experienced payoffs. In the experiment subjects converge to an absorbing state at rates that are orders of magnitude faster than reinforcement learning algorithms, but slower than under complete information. This state is very close to a mutual best response outcome. All cohorts converged to the market statistic predicted by the interior equilibrium regardless of the information conditions or the stability conditions. Eric Battalio programmed the graphical user interface. The National Science Foundation and Texas Advanced Research Program provided financial support. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the Texas Advanced Research Program.     

On the real effects of inflation and inflation uncertainty in Mexico

We estimate an augmented multivariate GARCH-M model of inflation and output growth for Mexico at business cycle frequencies. The main findings are: (1) inflation uncertainty has a negative and significant effect on growth; (2) once the effect of inflation uncertainty is accounted for, lagged inflation does not have a direct negative effect on output growth; (3) However as predicted by Friedman and Ball, higher average inflation raises inflation uncertainty, and the overall net effect of average inflation on output growth in Mexico is negative. That is, average inflation is harmful to Mexican growth due to its impact on inflation uncertainty. (4) The Mexican Presidential election cycle significantly raises inflation uncertainty both during the year of the election and the year following the election which has correspondingly negative effects on output growth.     

Disequilibrium dynamics in a simple macroeconomic model

The dynamic behavior of a simple macroeconomic disequilibrium model is analyzed in which consumers' changes in money holdings constitute the dynamic link between any two periods. It is shown that, under constant government consumption, a constant production function (no investment), and fixed prices and wages, stationary states of Keynesian unemployment are stable whereas those of repressed inflation are globally unstable. Possibilities of unemployment and output cycles are indicated for fixed wages as well as for some very simple class of wage and price adjustment mechanisms.     

Financial liberalization,financial sector development and growth: Evidence from Malaysia

The objective of this paper is to examine whether financial development leads to economic growth or vice versa in the small open economy of Malaysia. Using time series data from 1960 to 2001, we conduct cointegration and causality tests to assess the finance-growth link by taking the real interest rate and financial repression into account. The empirical evidence suggests that financial liberalization, through removing the repressionist policies, has a favorable effect in stimulating financial sector development. Financial depth and economic development are positively related; but contrary to the conventional findings, our results support Robinson's view that output growth leads to higher financial depth in the long-run.     

KIDNEY TRANSPLANTS AND THE SHORTAGE OF DONORS: IS A MARKET THE ANSWER?

This article examines the problem of kidney shortages for transplant in the United States. Following a study by Kaserman and Barnett, we reexamine the viability of allowing a market for cadaveric kidneys and estimate the implied equilibrium price based on our survey responses. In sharp contrast to the findings of Kaserman and Barnett, we estimate that a market equilibrium price for cadaveric kidneys may be prohibitively high. Consequently, we support other policy alternatives to increase supply, particularly presumed consent and mandated choice. Our findings also highlight the importance of obtaining data through experiments, rather than a survey, to estimate the impact of financial incentives. ( JEL I18, I12, I00)     

Experimental evidence of gender effects in arbitration decisions

The study investigates arbitrator gender and arbitrator-grievant gender effects on the decisions of 146 arbitrators rendered on a hypothetical sexual harassment case. Gender was not found to have a statistically significant effect on the decisions examined. However, other characteristics of the arbitrator—level of experience and level of education—were found to influence the arbitral decision.     

Some Determinants of Property Crime: Economic Factors Influence Criminal Behavior But Cannot Completely Explain the Syndrome

Abstract . An empirical analysis of the property crimes, robbery, burglary and larceny, is presented for all 120 counties in Kentucky. While this analysis is based on an economic model of crime, certain sociological and legal variables are included as well in the system of equations. Overall, the empirical results support prior studies’findings with the exception that a quadratic relationship is found to exist between urbanization and each of the property crimes. Furthermore, neither the economic nor the non economic influences measured appear more important for affecting crime rates. Specifically, results indicate that the level of poverty, the degree of tourism, the presence of police, the unemployment rate and the apprehension rate all affect property crimes. In contrast, the length of sentence, the degree of industrialization, the level of public assistance payments and the proportion of youth in the county have no affect on property crime rates in these areas.     

Monotonicity of Rank Statistics in some Non–parametric: Testing Problems

For some non–parametric testing problems (one–sided two–sample problem, k –sample trend problem, testing independence against positive dependence) a partial ordering, denoted by ≥, over the alternatives is defined. This partial ordering expresses the strength of the deviation from the null–hypothesis. All familiar rank tests turn out to become more powerful under "increasing" alternatives; that is, all familiar rank statistics preserve the ordering stochastically in samples whenever it is present between underlying distributions. As a tool, the sample equivalence of ≥ is introduced as a partial ordering over pairs of permutations. Functions, defined on pairs of permutations, which preserve this ordering are studied.