Tax incentives… or subsidies for business R&D?

We study whether firms’ actual use of R&D subsidies and tax incentives is correlated with financing constraints -internal and external- and appropriability difficulties and investigate whether both tools are substitutes. We compare the use of both policies by SMEs and by large firms and find significant differences both across instruments and across firm size. For SMEs, financing constraints are negatively correlated with the use of tax of credits, while they are positively associated with the likelihood of receiving a subsidy. The use of legal methods to protect intellectual property is positively correlated with the probability of using tax incentives, but not with the use of subsidies. For large firms external financing constraints are correlated with instrument use, but results regarding appropriability are ambiguous. Our findings suggest that (1) direct funding and tax credits are not perfect substitutes in terms of their ability to reach firms experiencing barriers associated to market failures; (2) one size may not fit all in innovation policy when the type or intensity of market failure differs across firm size, and (3) subsidies may be better suited than tax credits to encourage firms, especially young knowledge-based firms, to start doing R&D.     

The influence of job characteristics and self‐directed learning orientation on workplace learning

Given the increasing importance of learning at work, we set out to examine the factors which influence workplace learning behaviour. The study investigated the influence of the job characteristics from Karasek's Job Demand Control Support model and the personal characteristic self‐directed learning orientation on workplace learning. A total of 837 workers, aged between 18 and 65, from different sectors and with different educational levels completed a paper questionnaire. Analysis revealed that job demands and self‐directed learning orientation constitute significant and positive predictors of workplace learning behaviour. The study can help organizations to create job structures that promote workplace learning.     

Estimators for the common principal components model based on reweighting: influence functions and Monte Carlo study

The common principal components model for several groups of multivariate observations is a useful parsimonious model for the scatter structure which assumes equal principal axes but different variances along those axes for each group. Due to the lack of resistance of the classical maximum likelihood estimators for the parameters of this model, several robust estimators have been proposed in the literature: plug-in estimators and projection-pursuit (PP) type estimators. In this paper, we show that it is possible to improve the low efficiency of the projection-pursuit estimators by applying a reweighting step. More precisely, we consider plug-in estimators obtained by plugging a reweighted estimator of the scatter matrices into the maximum likelihood equations defining the principal axes. The weights considered penalize observations with large values of the influence measures defined by Boente et al. (2002). The new estimators are studied in terms of theoretical properties (influence functions and asymptotic variances) and are compared with other existing estimators in a simulation study.     

DETERMINANTS OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT – A TALE OF NINE THEORETICAL MODELS

Abstract.  This paper presents a review of nine theoretical models of foreign direct investment (FDI). Discussed are early studies of determinants of FDI (1) as well as determinants of FDI based on the neoclassical trade theory (2), ownership advantages (3), aggregate variables (4), the ownership, location and internalization advantage framework (5), horizontal and vertical FDI models (6), the knowledge-capital model (7), diversified FDI and risk diversification models (8) and policy variables (9). From each of the nine theories, the relevant determinants of FDI are derived. Empirical studies indicate the importance of these determinants in the real world. The paper shows that there is not one single theory of FDI, but a variety of theoretical models attempting to explain FDI and the location decision of multinational firms. Therefore, any analysis of determinants of FDI should not be based on a single theoretical model. Instead, FDI should be explained more broadly by a combination of factors from a variety of theoretical models such as ownership advantages or agglomeration economics, market size and characteristics, cost factors, transport costs, protection, risk factors and policy variables.     

Price discovery in the aluminum market

An extended version of the S. Beveridge and C. R. Nelson (1981) decomposition and a latent variable approach are used to examine how the noise content, and therefore the informativeness, of four aluminum prices that have been quoted at various times since 1970—the (now defunct) U.S. producer price, a transactions price reported in a trade journal, and the LME and Comex exchange prices. It was found that the start of aluminum futures trading in 1978 resulted in greater price transparency in the sense that the information content of transactions prices increased. LME prices quickly came to be more informative than published transactions prices. Although the initial Comex aluminum contract failed to attract liquidity and had low information content, the 1999 contract, trading currently, is as transparent as the LME contract. © 2005Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 25:967–988, 2005     

Which type of tourism matters to the regional economic growth? The cases of Spain and Italy

Recently, the attention given to the importance of tourism in economic growth has significantly increased. However, research in this area mainly refers to international tourism and to the national level. This paper focuses on the influence of tourism on the economic growth of Spanish and Italian regions. Both international and domestic tourism are analysed and geographical location criteria are considered. Dynamic panel data techniques are applied. The results reveal that both international and domestic tourism have a significant and positive role for regional economic growth in Spain and Italy, although the pattern of these effects differs among different types of region. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Power politics and the expansion of US exports, 1879–1938

In this article, we present quantitative evidence for the first time of the effect of US power politics on the expansion of its export market from the late nineteenth century to the eve of the Second World War. Like other empires, US imperial policy was expressed through annexation, gunboat policies, and asymmetrical trade agreements. We find that US exports to territories that became colonies or protectorates and those involved in other US military interventions grew more than three times faster between 1880–5 and 1934–8 than in the rest of the world. Our most relevant contribution to this discussion relies on a new geographically extensive database with information on bilateral trade flows, market size, trade costs, and variables that capture US political and military power. We first estimate a gravity equation to see the relationship between our power politics variables and US exports. Then, we present causal evidence of the role played by the colonies and protectorates in the expansion of US exports through an event study and the estimation of a generalized difference-in-differences model.     

Can tax regulations moderate revenue diversification and reduce financial distress in nonprofit organizations?

As a result of policies to reduce public deficit, nonprofit organizations have been forced to turn to charitable donations in order to diversify their revenue structure and thus reduce their levels of financial distress. Public administrations have supported this process through tax mechanisms designed to provide a legal framework that will encourage private philanthropy. Our aim is to analyse the role of nonprofit tax regulations in moderating the influence of revenue diversification on insolvency risk. To this end, we drew a sample of 406 nonprofit organizations located in Aragon and Navarre, two European regions with different tax regulations, for the period 2008–2018. Our results reveal that some tax regime requirements, such as the organizational purpose, minimum initial endowment, engagement in commercial activity, and accountability and monitoring standards, have a positive impact on revenue diversification and the reduction of financial distress and vulnerability. However, we also detect differences between regions which suggest that tax harmonization for nonprofit organizations remains a challenge.     

Is socially responsible investment useful in Mexico? A multi-factor and ex-ante review

The present paper continues the firsts reviews made to socially responsible investment in Mexico. We extended these reviews by using a non-parametric multivariate equality test, along with a multi-factor market cap model, and a Monte Carlo simulation. Our results show that the IPCS index, the IPCcomp and the IPC have a statistically equal mean-variance performance, suggesting that this sort of investment style (SRI) is a good substitute of the broad market investment style in the long term. Among the causes of this finding is the fact that the IPCS and the IPCcomp indexes have almost the same large and small cap stock concentration and the IPC index (a large-cap one) is not as diversified and mean-variance efficient as the former.     

The effect of violent crime on sector-specific FDI in Latin America

ABSTRACT

This article looks at the impact of violent crime on FDI into Latin America and the Caribbean during the 1996–2010 period. FDI is disaggregated into primary, secondary and tertiary sectors and three variables related to violent crime are used: homicides, crime victimization and organized crime. Controlling for institutions and the traditional determinants of FDI, we find that the impact of crime on FDI depends on the sector and types of crime considered. Higher homicide rates are associated with less FDI in the secondary sector while organized crime reduces tertiary sector FDI. Crime victimization has a robust significant negative impact on the tertiary sector and in some estimations of the secondary sector. Crime has no impact on primary sector FDI. Our study highlights the need to continue efforts to decrease crime as we show in our analysis that crime has a negative effect on FDI in the secondary and tertiary sector.