Asymmetric Tax Policy Responses in Large Economies With Cross-Border Pollution

We build a model of cross-border pollution between two large open economies, one importing the polluting good and the other exporting it, and derive their non-cooperative trade and environmental tax policies. We show among other things, that (1) in response to a bilateral reduction in trade taxes by both countries, the former country’s optimal policy is to lower its Nash emissions tax while the latter’s is to raise it, and (2) in response to an increase in emissions tax rates by both countries, the former country’s optimal reaction is to raise its Nash import tariff, while the latter’s is to reduce its Nash export tax. That is, in the present context, freer trade leads the exporting country to adopt stricter while the importing country laxer environmental tax policies.     

European Soil Data Centre: Response to European policy support and public data requirements

In the context of the European Union's Soil Thematic Strategy, policy makers require easy access to soil data and information of various types and scales to assess the state of soils at European level. To satisfy this need, the European Commission and the European Environment Agency (EEA) decided to establish the European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC), located at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre.The ESDAC is one of ten environmental data centres that have been established during the last 4 years in support of policy development, implementation and monitoring by the European Commission's Directorate General for Environment. The ESDAC, located at http://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu, has become the focal point for soil data and information at European Union level by hosting a series of soil products and web-based tools that allow access to the data. The ESDAC acts as the primary data contact point for the Commission and EEA to fulfill their information needs. The establishment and the evaluation of harmonised databases should facilitate improved soil protection measures.     

Demographic versus expenditure flexibility in Engel curves

We consider the effects of demographic and expenditure variables on consumer demand in a system of Engel curves using a smooth coefficient semiparametric model where the expenditure effects on the budget shares vary nonparametrically with demographic variables such as the age of head and number of children in the household. Our findings, based on UK micro data, suggest that with a smooth coefficient semiparametric model there is no need for nonlinear logarithmic expenditure effects in the budget shares. Furthermore, we find evidence of a trade-off between demographic and expenditure effects in Engel curves and that a rank-2 system of Engel curves where the logarithmic expenditure effects are allowed to vary with demographic characteristics either nonparametrically or as a third degree polynomial function cannot be rejected against a rank-3 (quadratic logarithmic) model. The implications on household behavior and welfare are also examined. We would like to thank an anonymous referee and Baldev Raj, the editor, for useful comments and suggestions. We would also like to thank the University of Cyprus for financial support, Theofanis Mamuneas for stimulating discussions and the Office of National Statistics for making available the UK Family Expenditure Survey data through the ESRC Data Archive. The last author would also like to acknowledge the financial support from SSHRC of Canada.     

Sense and sensibility in personalized e‐commerce: How emotions rebalance the purchase intentions of persuaded customers

This research develops and tests a theoretical model of customer persuasion in personalized online shopping, building on information processing theory, and addressing cognitive and affective stages of the persuasion process. Data from 582 experienced online customers were used to validate the proposed model through structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis. Results show that quality of personalization, message quality, and benefits of the personalized recommendations are important in the persuasion process. Positive emotions increase the effect of persuasion on purchase intentions, contrary to negative emotions. The study extends online personalization theory, offers an in‐depth analysis of the persuasion process in online shopping, and provides valuable recommendations for personalized online marketing.     

Nontraded Goods,Capital Taxes,and Temporary Immigration in a Small Open Economy

This paper extends the standard (one-good, two-factor) model of international capital and labor mobility by incorporating a nontraded good within a small capital-exporting, labor-importing country. It examines, from this country's perspective, the effects of capital taxes and temporary immigration on the nominal wage, and on welfare, and derives the optimal policy toward capital. It demonstrates, among other things, that (i) the optimal policy toward capital may be a tax on its domestic rate of return, depending on the factor intensity of the nontraded good and on the relationship between capital and labor in production, and (ii) the distinction between temporary and permanent immigration is important in evaluating its effects on various economic variables. [F20, F22]     

The communicative constitution of IT innovation

This paper contributes to studies of IT innovation, by approaching discourse and technology not as alternating causalities of change, but rather as constitutive to processes of change. Drawing on a communicative constitution of organization (CCO) perspective, the paper provides an analysis of oral and written evidence on innovations in the English National Programme for IT (NPfIT) from 1998 to 2011. The paper makes two key contributions to the literature. First, it offers a longitudinal empirical understanding of how IT innovation is constituted in the triadic relationship between human and nonhuman actors, and the narrative texts in which the delegation between the first two occurs. The paper explores the implications of this renewed understanding of IT innovation for IS research in sociomateriality. Second, the paper contributes to CCO-informed research by adopting a methodological approach that draws on both a historical analysis of the constitution of material objects in specific narrative texts and a rhetorical analysis of communicative actions. The paper explores the methodological implications of this approach for addressing the challenge of understanding the scaling-up of micro communicative actions to macro actions towards the constitution of IT innovation.     

Border tax adjustments and tariff‐tax reforms with consumption pollution

We develop a model of a small open economy, where pollution per unit of consumption between domestically produced and imported quantities of the same good differs. We show that the first‐best policy combination calls for consumption taxes on all polluting goods, and border tax adjustment (BTA) measures, that is, tariffs or import subsidies. We identify conditions under which well‐known tariff‐tax reform policies for developing economies, such as a consumer‐price‐neutral piecemeal reform of trade and a consumption tax, and a consumer‐price‐neutral reform of all trade and consumption taxes improve welfare. We also evaluate whether reforms of trade taxes alone are superior to consumer‐price‐neutral reforms of trade and consumption taxes.     

Experimental analysis of consumer channel-mix use

Today's consumers have access to multiple consumer distribution channels. To remain competitive, retailers must offer different contact points to consumers. This empirical study examines channel-mix use decisions for 352 online customers' holiday booking preparations. A scenario based experimental approach studies consumer channel-mix use by channel and decision context attributes. The study models effects of time pressure, expected expenditure, channel quality, and access costs on the use of eight channel options, including traditional and online options. Over one-half of respondents use multiple channels to decide trip booking; however, most travelers book trips using the channel they initially investigated for information. Results show expected expenditure does not influence channel use; however, overall cost affects the booking's timing. Time pressures force respondents to visit a travel agent or collect additional brochures to quickly complete the purchase. Results suggest brochures fulfill an important support role.     

The failure of foresight in crisis management: A secondary analysis of the Mari disaster

Foresight the ability to plan and think systematically about future scenarios in order to inform decision-making in the present has been applied extensively by corporations and governments alike in crisis management. Foresight can be complicated because dispersed groups have diverse, non-overlapping pieces of information that affects an organization's ability to detect, mitigate, and recover from failures. This paper explores the failure of foresight in crisis management by drawing on data on events that preceded and followed the Mari disaster in a naval base in Cyprus in July 2011, where a large explosion killed 13 people and injured 62 others, while completely destroying the major power plant of the island. The paper examines how foresight into crisis management decisions was compromised because of a conscious effort by high ranking decision-makers to minimize emergent danger and avoid responsibility for the crisis, in joint with red tape, bureaucracy, and poor coordination and information flows. The paper explores the notion of operational and political responsibility of individual decision-makers and discusses an alternative approach to foresight in crisis management, one that is built on multiple layers of decision-making.     

The Financing of Foreign Aid and Welfare: Income Versus Consumption Tax

Empirical evidence shows that developed countries use income or consumption taxes to generate tax revenue, of which they transfer a certain fraction as aid to less developed countries. This paper constructs a two-country general equilibrium trade model that takes into account these realities, and examines the terms of trade, employment and welfare effects of international transfers when the donor country increases the fraction of its income or consumption tax revenue transferred as aid. The desirability of each method of aid financing is discussed from the viewpoint of national and world welfare, and conditions are identified under which aid improves world welfare with the one method of financing, and may worsen it with the other.