JOINT VENTURE BUY‐OUTS UNDER UNCERTAINTY*

This paper provides a theory of joint venture buy‐outs in the presence of demand uncertainty. In an infinite horizon framework with demand uncertainty, we consider a foreign firm's decision on whether to form a joint venture or to open a fully owned subsidiary. Without the possibility of future share adjustment, the foreign firm enters the market through a joint venture if the host‐country firm helps to reduce the uncertainty significantly. Consequently, the firm enters at an earlier point in time compared to the situation in which opening a fully owned subsidiary is the only option to the firm. The possibility of future share adjustment in the joint venture further increases the incentive to speed up foreign investment. Although the possibility of share adjustment results in a joint venture buy‐out and can reduce the future profits of the host‐country firm, it may increase host‐country welfare by attracting foreign investment at an earlier point in time. We show the implications of learning in the joint venture.     

Wealth Inequality and Intergenerational Links

Previous work has had difficulty generating household saving behaviour that makes the distribution of wealth much more concentrated than that of labour earnings, and that makes the richest households hold onto large amounts of wealth, even during very old age. I construct a quantitative, general equilibrium, overlapping-generations model in which parents and children are linked by accidental and voluntary bequests and by earnings ability. I show that voluntary bequests can explain the emergence of large estates, while accidental bequests alone cannot, and that adding earnings persistence within families increases wealth concentration even more. I also show that the introduction of a bequest motive generates lifetime savings profiles more consistent with the data.     

The Effect of the Introduction of GST on Accountants' Job Satisfaction and Burnout

The introduction of the goods and services tax in Australia saw a fundamental shift in the working conditions and type of work performed by public accounting practitioners. This paper explores the impact of the introduction of GST on working conditions, job satisfaction and burnout, using data from a survey of 71 public accountants. The study finds that the introduction of the GST has caused accountants' burnout levels to increase while job satisfaction remains unchanged. An unexpected finding is that accountants' propensity to leave the profession has dramatically increased as a result of the introduction of the GST     

MARKET PERFORMANCE WITH MULTIPRODUCT FIRMS*

We revisit the fundamental issue of market provision of variety associated with Chamberlin, Spence, and Dixit‐Stiglitz when firms sell multiple products. Both products and firms are (horizontally) differentiated. We propose a general nested demand framework where consumers first decide upon a firm then which variant to buy and how much (the nested CES is a special case). We use it to determine the market's biases when firms compete in product ranges and prices. The market system attracts too many firms with too few products per firm: firms restrain product ranges to relax price competition, but this exacerbates over‐entry.