Analysis and quantification of a new fiscally neutral European tax

The present study contributes to the discussion on the new European tax or excise which would be based on taxing end consumption (taxing the products and not the production) according to how much CO₂ is emitted during the production of particular commodities, irrespective of whether all or a part of this process takes place inside or outside the EU. The analysis is based on the input–output model, which provides an appropriate and unique approach for measuring the total CO₂ content of the various commodities taking the entire production chain into account. The calculation by products can be the basis for the estimation of product specific CO₂ taxes. The model calculations based on the input–output table for the EU-27 for the year 2011 leads to the tax rate of 40.69 euros per tonne of CO₂ emissions, which could have generated fiscal revenue in the amount of 1% of EU GDP. In line with the principle of fiscal neutrality, a reduction of the labour costs by ?2.03% could compensate the introduction of a CO₂ tax by the amount of 40.69 euros per tonne of CO₂. The cost push effects lead to change of relative prices in favour of environmentally produced goods and services.     

The consequences of armed conflict on household composition

We evaluate the effect of large-scale violent conflict on the household composition of internally displaced persons using quantitative data from Colombia. We use a panel database of migrants constructed with the Sisben database (used to target social programmes in Colombia) for 2006–2009. We follow migrant mothers and children who belong to nuclear-biparental households before migration, and analyse the changes in the composition of their households after migration through multilevel multinomial logistic models. We do this separately for rural and urban migrants because they exhibit differences in household composition traditions and exposure to armed conflict. We find that urban and rural migrants have different migration strategies in both peaceful and armed conflict circumstances. We conclude that the household compositions of mothers and children are differently affected by violence, which might be caused by family separation; for example, rural children have a higher probability than mothers of belonging to households which are not nuclear biparental. We also find that exposure to violence can increase or decrease the effects of individual variables; for instance, in peaceful situations it is more likely that a household remains intact during migration when the number of children per adult increases; however, this effect is attenuated in violence situations.     

Hurdle models of repayment behaviour in personal loan contracts

This paper proposes a hurdle model of repayment behaviour in loans with fixed instalments. Using information on previous and current contracts, the approach yields a model of customer behaviour, useful, for example, in assessing the impact of determinants of default, a natural concern for credit and behavioural scoring. Under plausible assumptions, a debtor in each period faces a number of missed payments, which depends on his previous repayment decisions; meanwhile, as most debtors are expected to meet financial obligations, the number of missed payments is bound to display excess zeros, with reference to a single-part law. Each sequence of missed payments is modelled by using the binomial thinning, a conceptual tool that allows for dependence between integers by defining the support of consecutive counts. Under suitable assumptions on heterogeneity, the model can be produced under a random effects approach, leading to a two-part panel data model, estimable by quasi-maximum likelihood. The proposed approach is illustrated using a panel data set on personal loans granted by a Portuguese bank.     

Institutional framework,corporate ownership structure,and R&D investment: an international analysis

We combine agency theory with the law and finance approach to analyze how the legal protection of investors and the corporate ownership structure affect corporate investment in research and development (R&D). We use information from 956 firms from the five most R&D-intensive industries in 19 developed countries. Our results show that better protection of investors’ rights by the institutional environment has a positive influence on corporate R&D. We also find that corporate ownership concentration works as a substitute for legal protection. This finding means that R&D investment of the firms in the countries with poor legal protection increases as ownership becomes more concentrated. Our results also show that the identity of shareholders has a relevant effect: Whereas banks and nonfinancial institutions as shareholders result in lower R&D, institutional investors as shareholders increase corporate investment in R&D.     

Store attributes leading customer satisfaction with unplanned purchases

Understanding which specific factors of retail stores’ offering affect unplanned buyers’ satisfaction may be of great interest to store managers as they could set ad hoc strategies to target these consumers and establish long-term, profitable relationships with them. Satisfied unplanned buyers could indeed return to the store where they purchased their unplanned item(s) and/or positively talk about it with other customers. Nevertheless, we still know very little about such factors. To close this gap, this research gathered survey data on consumers’ store satisfaction and perceptions of store attributes in Spain during two time periods: in 2008, when the crisis was barely noticed by Spanish consumers, and five years later, when consumers were experiencing this economic situation. The results obtained evidence how grocery retailers can respond to customers’ awareness of the crisis by providing some managerial recommendations for bolstering satisfaction in consumer segments with diverse levels of unplanned buying behavior.     

Marcelo Diamand’s contributions to economic theory through the lens of the classical Keynesian approach: a formal representation of unbalanced productive structures

Abstract:

We examine both conceptually and in formal terms the contributions by the structuralist economist Marcelo Diamand, which all revolve around the notion of unbalanced productive structure, and its implications on income distribution, the general price level, and output dynamics in Latin American countries, with a special focus on Argentina. We argue that Diamand’s work provides a very useful framework to understand why institutionally and historically determined real wage and real exchange rates can, on the one hand, explain the relatively low productivity of the industrial sector and, on the other hand, cause devaluations to be both inflationary and contractionary, as has been the case in many Latin American countries that attempted to initiate an industrialization process by import substitution.     

Multiproduct Firms and Environmental Policy Coordination

The literature that analyzes the coordination of environmental taxes by governments considers that firms produce a single good at a single plant. However, in practice firms tend to produce several goods at various production plants (multiproduct firms). These firms may organize themselves in a centralized or decentralized fashion for purposes of decision-making: This affects their output and pollution levels. This paper sets out to analyze the coordination of environmental taxes considering multiproduct firms. We find that the organizational structure chosen by the owners of the firms depends on whether or not governments coordinate with one another in setting taxes, and on whether the goods produced are substitutes or complements. Social welfare is greater if a supranational authority sets taxes in all countries. In this case, joint welfare is never lower if the authority is constrained to set the same tax in all countries.