Towards the Development of a Tax System Complexity Index

Reducing tax system complexity is a common goal amongst policymakers; yet there is no commonly agreed definition of complexity. This paper seeks to fill this gap, by proposing the construction of an index of tax system complexity, conceived as a summary indicator of the overall complexity of a tax system at a particular point in time. If adopted, such an index would not only enable assessment of the changing level of a country's tax system complexity over time, but may also facilitate comparisons of the relative complexity of different countries' tax systems in future.     

Mechanisms of perceived accountability in Korean NPOs: activating the dynamics of NPM-driven and confucian-driven cultures

Quality & Quantity - Non-profit organizations (NPOs) have been recognized as critical performers not only in the enhancement of social values and civic integration but also in the construction...     

Human Capital Factors Affecting Human Resource (HR) Managers' Commitment to HR and the Mediating Role of Perceived Organizational Value on HR

Human resource (HR) managers’ commitment to their occupation (HR) leads to the proper delivery and implementation of HR practices and, therefore, is deemed as a critical factor for the success of HR practices. Based on sociocognitive, human capital, and signaling theories, this study examines: (a) HR managers’ own and their chief HR officer's (CHRO) HR‐specific human capital as antecedents of their commitment to HR, and (b) the mediating mechanism through which the CHRO’s HR‐specific human capital positively influences HR managers’ commitment to HR. Based on 146 HR managers from 146 organizations in South Korea, the findings of the current study suggest that HR managers with higher levels of HR‐specific human capital and those working with CHROs with higher levels of HR‐specific human capital tend to have higher levels of commitment to HR. In addition, CHROs with higher levels of HR‐specific human capital positively influence HR managers’ commitment to HR by signaling to them that HR and its function are valued and cared about by their organizations. Theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed along with study limitations and further research directions. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Using meta‐analytic structural equation modeling to advance strategic management research: Guidelines and an empirical illustration via the strategic leadership‐performance relationship

This paper demonstrates how meta‐analysis can be combined with structural equation modeling (MASEM) to address new questions in strategic management research. We review this integration, describe its implementation, and compare findings from bivariate meta‐analyses, a direct‐effect structural equations model, and two mediating frameworks using data on the strategic leadership and performance relationship. Results drawn from 208 articles that collectively included data on 495,638 observations demonstrate the new insights available from MASEM while also suggesting a revision to conventional thinking on strategic leadership. Whereas some theories posit that boards of directors influence firm performance through monitoring and disciplining the top management team, MASEM provides more support for the view that boards mediate the top management teams' decisions. Implications for applying MASEM in strategic management are offered. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Corporation Diversification and Firm Performance: Evidence from Vietnamese Listed Firms

We examine the effect of corporate diversification on the performance of firms listed on the Vietnamese stock exchanges, using 2744 firm year observations over the period from 2007 to 2012. We find that corporate diversification has a negative impact on firm performance. Our results are robust to various econometric estimation techniques including fixed effect, instrumental fixed effect, Heckman selection model and system generalised method of moments. In the Vietnamese context, the lack of an efficient corporate governance system may encourage firms to follow corporate diversification strategies, thus impairing their performance.     

The effects of risk aversion on life insurance ownership of single-parent households

This study investigates the effect of risk aversion of single-parent households with at least one child under 18 on life insurance ownership. Analysing the 1992–2013 Survey of Consumer Finances datasets, we found that the likelihood of owning term life insurance decreases as risk aversion increases, but the likelihood of owning cash-value life insurance increases as risk aversion increases. Smokers were less likely to own term life insurance but more likely to own cash-value life insurance than comparable non-smokers.     

Understanding the Effect of Productivity Changes on International Relative Prices: The Role of News Shocks

The US real exchange rate and terms of trade have been found to appreciate when US labour productivity increases relative to the rest of the world. This finding is at odds with predictions from standard international macroeconomic models. In this paper, we find that incorporating news shocks to total factor productivity (TFP) in an otherwise standard open‐economy sticky‐price dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with variable capital utilization can help the model replicate the above empirical finding. Labour productivity increases in our model after a positive news shock to TFP because of an increase in capital utilization. Under some plausible calibrations, the wealth effect of good news about future productivity can increase domestic demand strongly and induce an increase in home goods prices relative to foreign goods prices.     

“一带一路”归国学术人才学科分布分析

运用简历分析研究方法,对中国109所"211工程大学"教师的简历进行大数据分析,研究了来自"一带一路"沿线国家和地区的归国学术人才的学科分布情况。研究结果显示:来自"一带一路"沿线国家和地区的归国学术人才主要来自新加坡、俄罗斯和以色列,主要流入北京、上海和江苏;来自"一带一路"沿线国家和地区的归国学术人才的学科背景主要是工学和理学,具体的专业方向是材料学、工程技术类、电子信息类、土木类、化学、生物学和物理学。     

Conflict technology in cooperation: The group size paradox revisited

This paper studies the implications of punishment‐induced conflict in a public goods game. It shows, under plausible assumptions, how larger group size sometimes enhances punishing behavior in social dilemmas and hence supports higher levels of cooperation. Unlike existing approaches that focus on uncoordinated punishment, I consider punishment as a coordinated activity that may be resisted by those being punished and study the implications of punishment‐induced conflict situations. Developing a conflict model of punishment and combining it with a standard public good game, I show that coordinated punishment can yield the concentration effect of punishment, leading to a larger group advantage; that is, the larger the group, the easier it becomes to organize cooperation. The key idea is that when punishers coordinate their punishment, punishers as a coalition successfully divide defectors and punish each defector one by one. Surprisingly, even when coordination among punishers decays as group size increases, as long as the rate of decaying remains relatively slow the larger group advantage still obtains.     

Monetary policy regime change and regional inflation dynamics: looking through the lens of sector‐level data for Korea

This paper explores the impact of the adoption of inflation targeting (IT) on the dynamics of city‐level inflation in Korea using both aggregate and sector‐level data. When looking at aggregate regional inflation, we find that the mean, volatility and persistence fell in all cities in the wake of the monetary policy regime change, consistent with other evidence in the literature. Delving more deeply into the disaggregate data reveals additional insights however. For most of the changes we observe in the dynamics of regional inflation, we find that the aggregate effects are being driven primarily by sectors that fall into the ‘Services’ category. We posit that the impact of better anchored inflationary expectations is primarily on the less‐traded services sectors of the economy, where the domestic monetary policy framework has a relatively larger influence. When it comes to the increased co‐movement observed across regions under an IT regime, however, it is the ‘Commodities’ sectors rather than ‘Services’ that are responsible, probably because services inflation becomes relatively more influenced by local factors once it has stabilized within the target range. Therefore, adoption of IT may not necessarily increase all measures of regional synchronization even when the goal of better‐anchored inflationary expectations is achieved.