Overhead cost allocation changes in a transfer pricing tax compliant multinational enterprise

This paper addresses how overhead cost allocation system design in multinational enterprises (MNEs) is affected by transfer pricing tax regulation. Using a case study research strategy we find that the implementation of a transfer pricing tax compliance strategy gives rise to a number of changes to the overhead cost allocation system design. Findings suggests that a contingent relationship exists between overhead cost allocation and transfer pricing tax compliance. We argue that when seeking to understand and explain MNEs’ overhead cost allocation system design for intra-company services, the MNEs’ response to its tax regulatory environment is a significant explanatory variable.     

Population ageing in healthcare – a minor issue? Evidence from Switzerland

Our study shows that population ageing is a relevant determinant of healthcare expenditure (HCE). This conclusion supports the popular, but recently strongly contested, view that the coming population ageing will threaten the fiscal sustainability of health systems. We contribute to this debate, first by estimating the determinants of Swiss HCE with outlier-robust dynamic regressions, and second, by projecting Swiss HCE based on the estimates produced and new population scenarios. Medical advances and GDP per capita also play a decisive role. Governments can mitigate HCE growth by improving the health status of the population and by stimulating cost-effective and productive medical advances.     

Fiscal Equalization and Tax Enforcement

In many countries organized as federations, fiscal equalization schemes have been implemented to mitigate vertical or horizontal imbalances. Such schemes usually imply that the member states of the federation can only partly internalize (marginal) tax revenue before redistribution. Aside from the internalized marginal revenue, referred to as the marginal tax‐back rate, the remainder is redistributed. We investigate the extent to which state‐level authorities in such federation under‐exploit their tax bases. By means of a stylized model, we show that the member states have an incentive to align the effective tax rates on their residents with the level of the marginal tax‐back rate. We empirically test the model using state‐level and micro‐level taxpayer data, OLS regressions and natural experiments. Our empirical findings support the results from our theoretical model. Particularly, we find that states with a higher marginal tax‐back rate exploit the tax base to a higher extent.     

Do Equity Preferences Matter for Climate Negotiators? An Experimental Investigation

This paper investigates whether climate negotiators have preferences for equity and whether these preferences may help to explain different positions in international climate policy. For this purpose we conducted an online experiment with individuals who had been involved in international climate policy. The experiment consisted of two simple non-strategic games suited to measure individual inequality aversion as captured by the equity preference model of Fehr and Schmidt (Quarterly Journal of Economics 114:817–868, 1999). We find that our participants show an aversion to advantageous inequality to a considerable extent while the aversion to disadvantageous inequality is moderate. Regarding the geographical variety in our sample, we cannot confirm significant differences in the degree of inequality aversion between different regions in the world. Our conclusion is that regional differences in addressing climate change are driven more by national interests than by different equity concerns.     

PPPs: THE PASSAGE OF TIME PERMITS A SOBER REFLECTION

This paper argues that evaluations of public–private partnerships thus far point to contradictory results regarding their effectiveness and value-for-money. Despite continuing political popularity, greater care is needed to strengthen future evaluations and conduct such assessments away from the policy cheerleaders.     

The impact of stakeholder orientation on sustainability and cost prevalence in supplier selection decisions

The stakeholder approach has taken a prominent role in the discussion of sustainability measures at varying strategic levels and corporate functions. Literature on sustainability suggests that firms have to cope with enhanced pressure from different stakeholder groups regarding their upstream supply management practices. At the same time purchasing managers face the trade-off between sustainability and cost prevalence in selecting new suppliers. Thus, it is of major concern for companies in general and purchasing organizations in particular to know and understand how purchasing managers react to the influence of specific stakeholder groups when it comes to supplier selection decisions. Following this notion we formulate six sets of hypotheses linking the adoption of ethical business culture to the prevalence of sustainability and cost criteria in supplier selection decisions to be tested in a path analytical model.Based on the results of an empirical study conducted with purchasing managers from multi-national firms located in Germany, this paper makes two major contributions: first, it sheds light on direct effects of shareholder, public, and customer orientation on the evaluation of the outlined-trade off; second, it investigates the indirect effects by introducing the formalization of ethical culture as a mediating variable to assess the impact of the three kinds of shareholder orientation on the propensity to select suppliers based on their performance in terms of social and environmental criteria as well as cost performance.     

On the relationship between supplier integration and time-to-market

Recent operations management and innovation management research emphasizes the importance of supplier integration. However, the empirical results as to the relationship between supplier integration and time-to-market are ambivalent. To understand this important relationship, we incorporate two major recent developments. First, the literature has started to redefine supplier integration into two dimensions, supplier product integration and supplier process integration. Second, recent research has begun to examine spillover effects that extend beyond the direct costs and benefits of the supplier contract. Using survey data of 116 firms in the industrials, health care, and information technology industries, the results confirm our hypotheses and show that supplier product integration decelerates time-to-market while supplier process integration accelerates time-to-market. The results also show a positive relationship between supplier integration and the adoption of external technologies, which either decelerates or accelerates time-to-market depending on the level of internal exploration activities. Our research, thus, helps to open the ‘black-box’ of the relationship between supplier integration and time-to-market, and provides a theoretically grounded explanation to the apparent contradictory results in prior research about the influence of supplier integration on time-to-market. In addition, we contribute to research on spillover effects by emphasizing that information technology adoption and assimilation is an important spillover effect of supplier integration.     

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Globalization and specialization

The popular Dixit–Stiglitz–Ethier framework proposes that globalization increases the menu of intermediate goods available to downstream firms and that gains from specialization raise welfare unambiguously. This study shows that both results depend critically on the assumption that demand elasticities are invariable. The more general framework presented here provides two main insights: First, whether specialization rises or falls depends ultimately on the shape of the cost function, and second, globalization can actually reduce welfare in the case when specialization falls.