IFRS Adoption and Stock Prices of Japanese Firms in Governance System Transition

This study examines firms' decision to voluntarily adopt IFRS in a setting where there are changes to the governance system in a traditionally code law country, as well as how the market responds to such decisions. We find the probability of voluntary IFRS adoption to be higher among firms that have a high proportion of foreign shareholders, undertake quality audits, have low levels of leverage, feature a nominating committee, and are included in the new market index. In addition, the stock prices of IFRS adopters tend to increase around the announcement date of IFRS adoption, compared to those of non-adopters. Finally, market reactions are smaller for firms that feature a nominating committee, and are included in the new market index—perhaps because IFRS adoption by these firms is less surprising to market participants, and because IFRS adoption is not expected to add large incremental value to these firms.     

International commodity taxation in the presence of unemployment

In this paper, we evaluate the impact of commodity tax competition on welfare and employment under the destination and origin principles, when the labor market is imperfectly competitive owing to a binding fixed wage. Our main finding is that commodity taxation causes an employment externality whose signs may be opposite under the two principles. While tax competition leads to inefficient tax rates under both principles, we also prove that the origin principle guarantees lower unemployment and higher welfare when the fixed wage is high. Finally, we show that the employment externality still exists in a standard union model of wage determination.     

Currency Invoicing in Japanese Exports to East Asia: Implications for Yen Internationalization

The present paper examines currency invoicing in Japanese exports to East Asia by applying the pricing-to-market (PTM) theory. The notable aims of the present paper are to: (i) use a number of sample commodities obtained from the data on monthly series of exports based on the nine-digit Harmonized System; and (ii) examine currency invoicing practices of Japanese exporters by making a distinction between the long-run and short-run PTM under the framework of the error-correction model. Contrary to the results of previous reports, our study shows that Japanese exporters of electric machinery tend to stabilize US Dollar (USD)-denominated export prices in the short run in East Asian markets, implying that electric machinery products tend to be invoiced in USD in exports to East Asia. Given the USD-invoicing practices by Japanese electric machinery exporters, it is hard to expect the further use of the Yen in trade transactions because the electric machinery industry plays a major role in facilitating trade and investment between Japan and East Asia.     

Who gains from capital market integration? Tax competition between unionized and non‐unionized countries

The welfare effects of capital market integration are examined under a model of tax competition with two asymmetric countries. The asymmetry is expressed through the labour market: one country has a perfect labour market whereas the other country's labour market is unionized. Our results indicate that the welfare effects of capital market integration differ depending on whether governments are active or passive in attracting capital. In the absence of active governments, capital market integration benefits the country with a competitive labour market whereas it harms the unionized country. Capital market integration benefits both countries if governments are active and compete for mobile capital using taxes/subsidies.     

Automated Certification for Compliant Cloud-based Business Processes

A key problem in the deployment of large-scale, reliable cloud computing concerns the difficulty to certify the compliance of business processes operating in the cloud. Standard audit procedures such as SAS-70 and SAS-117 are hard to conduct for cloud-based processes. The paper proposes a novel approach to certify the compliance of business processes with regulatory requirements. The approach translates process models into their corresponding Petri net representations and checks them against requirements also expressed in this formalism. Being based on Petri nets, the approach provides well-founded evidence on adherence and, in case of noncompliance, indicates the possible vulnerabilities.     

Optimal Growth with Endogenous Technical Progress: Hicksian Bias in a Macro Model

If productivity growth is endogenous, the question of whether to allocate some resources to increase the efficiency of capital needs to be examined in spite of the conventional wisdom that only Harrod-neutral technical progress is compatible with the steady state. This paper describes the crucial role that the production technology and research sectors play in determining the allocation of resources for accumulating physical capital and enhancing the productivity of inputs. We develop a model of biased growth, where, even in the steady state, the efficiency of capital and labour are increasing due to the allocation of resources to the research sector.
JEL Classification Numbers: C62, O31.     

EMBODIED CARBON IN TRADE: A SURVEY OF THE EMPIRICAL LITERATURE

This paper critically reviews the literature on embodied carbon in trade and evaluates our present empirical understanding of these flows. A careful comparison of quantitative results from this literature exposes significant inconsistencies. For instance, estimates for emission embodied in world trade in 2004 range between 4.4 Gt and 6.2 Gt CO2, the difference corresponding to around half of Europe's annual emissions. A few consistent themes do nevertheless emerge from the literature. Most importantly, emissions in trade constitute a large and growing share of global emissions. Uncertainty about country‐level embodied emissions remains large, however, which presents severe limitations for the practical application of embodied carbon principles in climate policy.     

Should Chinese Renminbi be Blamed for Its Trade Surplus? A Structural VAR Approach

During the recent years, the Renminbi (RMB) exchange rate issue has been at the centre of ongoing debate over the source of global current account imbalance, especially with the United States. The objective of this study is to contribute to the current discussion by providing some new evidence on China’s exchange rate policy and the impacts of RMB devaluation/revaluation on China’s trade balance using a structural vector autoregression (VAR) approach. The results indicate that the dynamic effect of exchange rate on China’s trade balance is still very limited and China’s balance of trade is mainly determined by the world demand and its trade performance, with the latter being a result of its successfully maintained comparative advantage.