Fighting multiple tax havens

This paper develops a competition theory framework that evaluates an important aspect of the OECD's Harmful Tax Practices Initiative against tax havens. We show that the sequential nature of the process is harmful and more costly than a “big bang” multilateral agreement. The sequentiality may even prevent the process from being completed successfully. Closing down a subset of tax havens reduces competition among the havens that remain active. This makes their “tax haven business” more profitable and shifts a larger share of rents to these remaining tax havens, making them more reluctant to give up their “tax haven business”. Moreover, the outcome of this process, reducing the number of tax havens, but not eliminating them altogether, may reduce welfare in the OECD.     

SPLIT–PLOT DESIGN: MODEL AND ANALYSIS FOR COUNT DATA

The analysis of count response data from designed experiments is well–known for independent response variables having the Poisson distribution. For experimental designs where responses are dependent, no general results seem to be available. An example of this type of design is the split–plot design, where sub–plot responses are essentially dependent within whole plots.
In this paper, a model will be proposed for split–plot count data and a separate analysis for whole plot and sub–plot data will be presented. It is interesting to note, that the same model is used in the quite different context of consumer buying behaviour. It is derived by Goodhardt, Ehrenberg and Chatfield and it was called the 'Dirichlet model', as the Dirichlet multinomial distribution, together with the negative binomial distribution, build up the model.     

Wechsel in der Raumordnungspolitik

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Föderalismusreform—danach ist davor

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Federalism, weak institutions and the competition for foreign direct investment

This paper shows that vertical fiscal inefficiencies impede federally organized countries in successfully attracting foreign direct investment. Such countries, particularly if characterized by weak institutions, are disadvantaged in the process of bidding for firms and in their ability to commit to a low overall tax burden. The interaction of these problems deteriorates their competitive position vis-à-vis unitary states in the competition for foreign direct investment. These theoretical considerations are in line with recent empirical evidence that suggests that the number of government layers of host countries has significant and sizeable negative effects on the amount of foreign direct investment inflows.      

Investment,internal funds and public banking in Germany

Previous studies supposed that low investment-cash flow sensitivities of German firms may be caused by a dominance of public banking. The paper addresses this assumption and applies a unique accounting dataset of German firms. Results from a dynamic version of the sales accelerator model show that the dependence of investment spending on internal funds does not significantly differ among firms attached to savings banks, cooperative banks or commercial banks. Thus, the importance of the public banking sector in Germany may not explain the rather low dependence of German firms on internal funds, and public ownership of banks does not seem to be important for reducing financing constraints.     

Impacts of Decoupled Agricultural Support on Farm Structure,Biodiversity and Landscape Mosaic: Some EU Results

The decoupling of direct payments from production represents a substantial reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Farmers are no longer required to produce commodities to be entitled to support but only to keep land in Good Environmental and Agricultural Condition. If output declines as a result, there is concern that landscape services produced jointly with commodities will also decline. The aim of this paper is to assess the long‐term effects of the 2003 reform on farm structure, landscape mosaic and biodiversity for a sample of EU regions. Impacts are quantified using a spatial agent‐based modelling approach by simulating agricultural development with links to indicators of landscape value. Our results demonstrate that eliminating the link between support payments and production has possible negative consequences for the landscape, but only under particular circumstances. It is shown that these effects could be offset by strengthening (Pillar II) agri‐environmental schemes. Further the single payment scheme results in higher land rental prices which reduces its ability to achieve its goal of providing income security for farmers. Implications of these results for the direction of continued CAP reform are discussed.