Determinants of early internationalization of new firms: the case of Chile

The aim of this article is to analyze the factors related to the early internationalization of new firms in Chile. We grouped the internationalization driver factors into three categories: individual, organizational, and firm-environmental factors. Using a sample of 374 entrepreneurs from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data and performing a logistic regression model, we found that owner-manager’ high educational levels, opportunity-oriented motivation, new technology use, and activities related to extractive sectors (e.g., farming, forestry, fishing, and mining) contribute to a higher likelihood of early firm internationalizing. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Education Policies: Equity, Efficiency and Voting Equilibrium

This paper investigates the effects of two specific forms of intervention in the market for education: an ability test for admission to university and a subsidy to tuition fees financed through general taxation. Both these measures enhance equality of opportunity, but their equity and efficiency effects are ambiguous. This ambiguity is reflected in the political economy equilibrium which would emerge as the result of voting on the level of the ability test and of the subsidy.     

Price Caps and Output Floors: A Comparison of Simple Regulatory Rules

We study in this paper a simple alternative to price cap regulation. The mechanism, which we label 'output floor' regulation, requires the regulated firm to supply a given level of output. This rule is as simple as price cap regulation, and performs identically when the regulated firm is a natural monopoly; however, we show that, in the presence of a competitive fringe, output floor regulation yields lower prices and stronger incentives for cost reduction. Its introduction, however, is likely to be resisted by the industry, since it lowers managerial utility and shareholders' profits.     

Demography and pollution

In this paper, we consider an OG model with endogenous fertility and pollution externalities. We assume that pollution lowers the productivity. In the long run, under dominant income (substitution) effects, a raise in the cost of rearing children, increases (decreases) consumption and decreases (increases) pollution. In the short run, under dominant income effects, a sufficiently low pollution elasticity of labor productivity promotes deterministic cycles through a Hopf bifurcation jointly with expectations-driven fluctuations.     

EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND INTERNAL ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY: The Case of the Italian Manufacturing Industry 1971–1991

In the context of the New Economic Geography literature, this article focuses on the consequences of decreasing external trade costs on the localization of manufacturing activities within a single nation. The article studies how the internal economic geography of a specific country is affected by the reduction of trade barriers with other economies. Italian geographical employment data are used to test whether the changes in the industrial structure of Italian regions between 1971 and 1991 are consistent with those proposed by the theoretical models.     

Hierarchies in organisations and labour market competition

This paper studies the endogenous determination of hierarchies in firms. Firms can design a hierarchy with a continuum of ranks, one for each ability level. Nevertheless, in the market equilibrium, they choose to have only a finite number of ranks, so that in each rank there are workers of different abilities, who produce different output, and receive the same wage. It is also shown that an increase in the extent of labour market competition reduces the number of ranks in the hierarchy.     

Constitutional Design and Investment in Cooperatives and Investor‐Owned Enterprises

Abstract This paper studies the role of the corporate governance system in cooperatives and in investor‐owned enterprises. We abstract from all possible differences between the two systems except the type of majority needed to take decisions: this is one‐head‐one‐vote for cooperatives and proportional to capital invested in investor‐owned firms. We show that the institutional form chosen matters for the initial investment decision of the agents: in particular we find that members of a cooperative invest less than they would in an investor‐owned enterprise.     

On the dominance of capitalists leadership in a ‘Feedback-Stackelberg’ solution of a differential game model of capitalism

This paper deals with a modified version of the Lancaster model of capitalism, where it is assumed that there is a cost jointly borne by the two groups of players (workers versus capitalists) and associated with the bargaining of a larger share of consumption for the workers. It is shown that a Feedback- Stackelberg solution, with the capitalists acting as leaders and announcing their investment policy at the beginning of each period, is a solution dominating the Feedback-Nash solution. The paper is also intended to be a tutorial on the Feedback-Stackelberg solution, a concept not so often used by economic modelers.     

Quantifying the economic cost of children: a note on intertemporal equivalence scales

Static economic models based on complete demand systems are inadequate for estimating unconditional equivalence scales; in order to capture the effects of demographic changes on consumer behaviour, a life-cycle dynamic model is taken into account. In literature, studies have presented and evaluated longitudinal equivalence scales and intertemporal cost of children but these cannot be applied in practice when equivalence scales are utilised in poverty or income distribution analyses. This paper proposes intratemporal equivalent income scales, which are within period index numbers incorporating intertemporal consumer behaviour.