Marginal and Average Tax Rates and the Incentive for Self-Employment

The paper examines how the incentives for individuals to take up self-employment, rather than paid employment, are influenced by the marginal and average income tax rate. A model is developed in which an individual optimally chooses the supply of labor effort and the amount of tax to evade. Assuming that remuneration is more responsive to effort but that the opportunities for evasion are greater in self-employment, we find a negative relationship between self-employment and the marginal tax rate but a positive relationship with the average rate. This is supported by empirical evidence for 15 OECD countries over the 1980s.     

Overhead allocation: a cautionary tale!

This paper examines the behavioural consequences of charging/allocating central overheads to profit centres within a UK public sector institution. It is based on actual events at a UK university and the issues are set out in a case study format using correspondence from the profit centre manager to highlight issues of contol and measurement. A number of student tasks are suggested that require students to think beyond accounting numbers and consider the potentially conflicting roles of accounting information. In particular there is a conflict between the need to recover full costs from the University/Head Office perspective and the potential alienation of profit centre managers with only crude models for overhead recovery. The problems caused by inappropriate communication of accounting data and reactions to that data are also considered and instructors may use the case to introduce students to the differences between profit and not-for-profit organizations.     

Structural change,specialization and regional labour market performance: evidence for the UK

While structural change and regional differences in the pattern of employment specialization are widely perceived to be significant factors in accounting for disparities in the labour market performance of regions in the United Kingdom, there have been relatively few recent attempts to gather detailed evidence on this issue. The current study aims to fill this gap by examining the effects of structural change and associated changes in the pattern of employment specialization on three key indicators of regional labour market performance: the rate of employment growth, the unemployment rate and the rate of nonemployment. The findings indicate that while industry structure has statistically significant effects on regional labour market performance, the quantitative significance of these effects is relatively small.     

Are Scottish firms meeting the ICT challenge? Results from a National Survey of Enterprise

This paper examines the diffusion of Information Communication Technology (ICT) into firms in Scotland and northern England. Data concerning the adoption of micro-computers, e-mail, the Internet, ISDN, in-house website, and the automation of business functions is analysed by industry, firm size, firm age, rate of growth, export involvement, and innovation activity. The results from a sample of 1347 firms found an overall increase in the adoption of ICT in firms between 1998 and 2001. The increase is led by older and larger firms in comparison to younger and smaller firms. In addition, the diffusion of the automation of business functions was found to be sequential, from generic to specific applications. Further increases in the diffusion of ICT are likely to come from upgrading existing equipment and increases in the range of business functions that can be automated. Finally, although use of the Internet and web-based trading has increased in the sample firms, this has not replaced traditional marketing and sales. The results support the view that more firms are taking up the challenge of using ICT in-house, with older and larger firms leading the way ahead of younger and smaller firms.     

The use and impact of business advice by SMEs in Britain: an empirical assessment using logit and ordered logit models

This study assesses the effect of differences in types of client on the use and impact of business advice by SMEs in Britain using new survey evidence from the Cambridge ESRC Centre for Business Research Survey of 1997. The survey, covering over 2500 respondents, is the largest and most definitive assessment available in Britain. Moreover, the survey allows an assessment of the full range of providers of external advice, the private sector, business associations and various public sector bodies, as well as the fields of advice. Using multivariate logit models it is found that size of firm, rate of growth and innovation appear to be the main variables influencing the likelihood of firms seeking external advice, both from different sources and from different fields. Other variables which are investigated include, age, profitability, skill levels, manufacturer/services, and exporter/nonexporter. Ordered logit models of the impact of the advice demonstrate that there are significant differences between clients' perceived impact of advice and the sources of advice they use, chiefly as a result of firm size, and to a lesser extent for growth, innovation and export levels.     

Innovative opportunity pursuit, human capital and business ownership experience in an emerging region: evidence from Ghana

This study explores whether an entrepreneur??s ability to assemble and leverage human capital, particularly specific human capital relating to prior business ownership experience, is associated with seven types of product and work practices innovation in an emerging region, namely, Ghana. Logistic regression estimation revealed that portfolio entrepreneurs were more likely than novice entrepreneurs to report ??innovation tried??. Multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that portfolio entrepreneurs were more likely than other entrepreneurs to report ??innovation tried and introduced??. If the goals of policy are to increase the ??quality?? of new business start-ups and maximize investment returns, there is a case to target assistance to portfolio entrepreneurs.     

The Advisor-SMF Client Relationship: Impact,Satisfaction and Commitment

This paper investigates the relationship between the type of business advisors used by SMEs and the level of impact and satisfaction a SME receives. The role of other influences, such as the intensity and cost of the service, and the level of commitment to an advisor by the client are also investigated. A structural equation path model is estimated from survey information for SMEs in Britain. The analysis shows that customer impact, satisfaction and re-use intentions are related to the character of the firm (particularly its size), the intensity and cost of services, but is only marginally influenced by the geographical distance between advisor and client. Affective commitment, measured by the level of the ‘trust’ of the advisor by the client, is shown not to be significant, except for public sector and business association suppliers. The importance of trust to these suppliers, despite the low satisfaction levels they achieve, is argued to be incompatible with attempts to charge fees, as has been sought for the government network of Business Link. Both business associations and public sector support bodies therefore have severe limitations in combining their broader roles with a commercially- based fee-based income strategy.     

Two models of urban air pollution

In this paper, the impact of pollution on locational decisions and the production of pollution by individuals are modeled. This is done for pollution produced by transportation and for that produced by stationary sources. The nature of pollution as an externality distorts the pattern of land use. Transport pollution produces cities which are too dispersed or too large, whereas the reverse is true for pollution from stationary sources. The optimal spatial pattern of income classes in the model of transport pollution is that the better off people live further away from the center of the city; the reverse is true for the model of pollution from stationary sources.