Foreign Management,International Capital,and Income Redistribution

This paper examines the impact of foreign management as a separate input in a competitive economy open to both international trade and international movement of productive capital. Three inputs (capital, labor, management) are used to produce two final goods in a model characterized by competition, homogeneous products, and full employment. This model provides a simple starting point for the study of multinational firm activity, building on the fundamental competitive factor proportions model of production and trade. A clear distinction arises between international movements of capital and management, and international movements of the two inputs are linked. [F 11, F 23]     

Telling their own stories: Māori entrepreneurship in the mainstream screen industry

We examined how factors from Indigenous entrepreneurship research (social capital, cultural capital, self-efficacy) help explain the high level of Māori entrepreneurial performance in the mainstream screen industry. Results, based on ten case studies and a one-year series of structured interviews, extend prior research by showing that these Indigenous entrepreneurs benefit jointly from two forms of capital: cultural and social. We found high levels of both forms to increase the desire for emancipation of cultural and community identity – not just individual identity – through entrepreneurship. Self-efficacy and storytelling helped ameliorate discontinuities across Indigenous and mainstream contexts. Our research sheds new light on how Indigenous ventures can pursue mainstream entrepreneurship while maintaining cultural identity. It also makes several distinct contributions to the Indigenous entrepreneurship literature. First, it provides an integrative theoretic review. Second, it illustrates a culturally appropriate methodology for researching Māori entrepreneurs with implications for other Indigenous communities. Third, it proposes cultural capital and social capital as a two-part framework for explaining Indigenous entrepreneurial action. Fourth, it shows how entrepreneurship can be empowering for Indigenous communities. Finally, our paper demonstrates that entrepreneurship is a promising mechanism for preserving and promoting the cultures of Māori and other Indigenous peoples.     

“Business and Government” Then and Now

Socio-environmental conflicts are widespread, and global economic growth will likely increase them in the coming decades. While political ecology, the analysis of common pool resources, and ecological economics, among others, have provided praiseworthy insights into such conflicts, institutional approaches to these phenomena are still scarce. Classical institutional economics has occasionally been put to work on environmental issues, but proposed frameworks remain relatively underdeveloped. We wish to contribute to institutional research on environmental issues by building upon Bruno Théret’s interpretation of John R. Commons’s transactional model and applying the framework to a case of socio-environmental conflicts. First, we briefly sketch the landscape of institutional contributions (especially those that follow the classical institutionalist tradition) to the analysis of environmental issues. We explain why Commons has largely been ignored on these issues. Then, we analyze some of the key concepts of Commonsian economics that are of particular interest to our theoretical elaboration. Following this, we depict Commons’s transactional scheme and propose an application to a case of socioenvironmental mining conflict in Peru. Our framework could complement existing ones and shed light on the institutional dynamics of natural-resource management through conflict.     

Climate Change Taxes and Energy Efficiency in Japan

In 2003 Japan proposed a Climate Change Tax to reduce its CO₂ emissions to the level required by the Kyoto Protocol. If implemented, the tax would be levied on fossil fuel use and the revenue distributed to encourage the purchase of energy efficient equipment. Analysis using the MIT Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model shows that this policy is unlikely to bring Japan into compliance with its Kyoto target unless the subsidy encourages improvement in energy intensity well beyond Japan’s recent historical experience. Similar demand-management programs in the US, where there has been extensive experience, have not been nearly as effective as they would need to be to achieve energy efficiency goals of the proposal. The Tax proposal also calls for limits on international emission trading. We find that this limit substantially affects costs of compliance. The welfare loss with full emissions trading is 1/6 that when Japan meets its target though domestic actions only, the carbon price is lower, and there is a smaller loss of energy-intensive exports. Japan can achieve substantial savings from emissions trading even under cases where, for example, the full amount of the Russian allowance is not available in international markets.