Tax-mix, public spending composition and growth

This paper characterizes optimal fiscal policy in an endogenous growth model whose policy implications are consistent with the relationship between two stylized facts observed in a majority of OECD economies, namely the growth in the ratios of both government consumption to public investment and of direct to indirect taxation from 1970 to 2004. Assuming a continuation in the upward trend for the public consumption to output ratio consistent with that observed for this variable between 1970 and 2004 for most developed economies, we find that the optimal tax system becomes more intensive in income taxation relative to consumption taxation, and that public disbursements become less intensive in public investment, which is consistent with the co-evolution of these ratios over the last 40 years.     

University IPRs and knowledge transfer: is university ownership more efficient?

This paper addresses an issue that has been largely ignored so far in the empirical literature on the role of patents in university–industry knowledge transfer: does it matter who owns the patents on university research? We observe that especially in Europe, many patents in which university researchers are listed as inventors are not owned by the university. From a literature review, we conclude that private ownership of university patents may reduce the efficiency of the knowledge transfer process. This hypothesis is put to an empirical test, using data on patents in six European countries. Specifically, we assess whether university-owned patents (in Europe) are more often applied, and/or more economically valuable, than university-invented (but not-owned) patents. Our results indicate that, after correcting for observable patent characteristics, there are only very small differences between university-owned and university-invented patents in terms of their rate of commercialization or economic value.     

Supplier behavior and its impact on customer satisfaction: A new characterization of negotiation behavior

Many questions of customer/supplier negotiation dynamics remain unanswered. One reason behind this is that most existing models do not entirely reflect the complex relationship between negotiation behavior and the attained outcome of the negotiation process, analyzing the former from a purely dichotomous perspective. This study examines supplier negotiation behavior and how it impacts the outcome (satisfaction) from the customer´s perspective, thereby proposing a new characterization of negotiation behavior. Our analysis is based on a case study of 21 customer/supplier negotiations carried out by four leading supermarket chains in Costa Rica. Evidence supports our proposal that in customer/supplier negotiations, supplier negotiation behavior can include both integrative and competitive actions within the same negotiation, thereby justifying our proposal of different classifications existing within the negotiation continuum. It was also noted that supplier negotiation behavior influences a customer´s perceived satisfaction level. These findings are relevant to both academia and the professional world and can be used to promote better implementation and performance of agreements attained during a negotiation.     

Input,Output, and Environmental Management Productivity: Effects on Firm Performance

Firms invest considerable resources to control any of their operations that may have environmental impacts in an attempt to reduce such impacts but also generate economic value. Various studies of the basic creation or destruction of monetary value through environmental performance offer contradictory evidence. Therefore, the present study proposes a new definition of environmental management as the transformation of inputs (resources assigned) into outputs (valuable results). Both inputs and outputs should be taken into account to explain financial outcomes; further consideration should also include a third aspect, namely, ‘environmental management productivity’, which describes the relationship between the outputs and inputs of environmental management. Empirical analyses of Spanish firms with a certified environmental management system subject to the European Union's CO₂ emissions trading system provide evidence that all three aspects must be considered in combination to achieve a more comprehensive view of the impact of environmental management on financial performance. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

International mobility of capital,wage indexation,and the cost of policy mistakes under ambiguity: a CGE evaluation

In this paper we focus on the role institutions and structural parameters play in macroeconomic policy design and test the differential effects of tax policies on two structural parameters: the degree of international capital mobility and the rules of wage indexation practiced in the economy. We evaluate counterfactual changes in taxation in the Argentine economy using a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Model with unemployment, calibrated with 2006 data, showing that policy mistakes (diagnosis failures) are costlier when the degree of capital mobility is greater and the rules to determine salaries could amplify the losses. Among other taxes, we evaluate the choice of export taxation, historically one of the preferred revenue sources of Argentine governments. We discuss the choice of taxes that an optimistic and a pessimistic policymaker will make under Knightian uncertainty and find that, in the case of our CGE, an optimistic policymaker prefers to tax export goods, while a more pessimistic one tends to tax imports or non-tradable goods.     

Factors Influencing Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Organic Fruits and Vegetables: Empirical Evidence from a Consumer Survey in India

Numerous consumers confronted with increasing environmental problems, food safety issues, and augmentative health problems increasingly desire to have healthier and more natural foods grown in an eco-friendly manner. Hitherto organic foods only partly benefit from this increasing market environment, and their market share stays rather low despite high growth rates. This article aims to investigate consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for organic fruits and vegetables and relevant factors affecting consumers WTP. The contingent valuation method was selected to estimate WTP. Empirical data was drawn from a 250-consumer survey conducted in Bangalore during February 2013. A binomial logistic regression model was applied to obtain the value of WTP and determine the factors influencing it. The results indicated that about 90% of the consumers were willing to pay a premium price ranging between 5% to more than 100% in order to acquire better-quality fruits and vegetables; factors such as family income, size of the family, gender, and other opinion variables such as chemical residue in conventional foods, trust on retailers, taste, and environmental concerns significantly influence consumers’ WTP. More than 87% of the consumers indicated that high price, lack of availability, narrow range, and irregular supply are the major barriers for them to buy these products. The results provide useful evidence to pertinent governmental agencies in terms of assisting in the design of policies for the promotion of organic food production and marketing and reaching the target public. Furthermore, firms involved in the organic foods business may also see benefits when drawing information in order to calibrate marketing strategies.     

Responsibility or autonomy: children and the probability of self-employment in the USA

This paper studies the effect of children on the likelihood of self-employment. Having children can change preferences that are central to the decision whether to be self-employed. On the one hand, individuals’ preference for autonomy and flexibility increases when having children, which increases the willingness to be self-employed. On the other hand, having children entails a responsibility over someone else, which increases individual risk aversion and decreases the willingness to be self-employed. Using a pooled cross section of 26 years from the General Social Survey, instrumental variable estimates indicate that, in the USA, having children under the age of 18 in the household decreases the likelihood of being self-employed by 11 % (i.e., the responsibility effect dominates). This effect is considerable as a child decreases the probability of self-employment more than the increase associated with being raised by a self-employed father—one of the main determinants of self-employment.     

On the Irrelevance of Mercosur: Evidence From Foreign Direct Investment

ABSTRACT

This article utilizes data from more than 100 countries over 30 years to identify the key factors that make a country more attractive to foreign direct investment (FDI). We find evidence that a country's potential marginal returns to capital, available infrastructure, degree of trade openness, labor force qualification, and macroeconomic stability have a positive impact on FDI inflows. Our estimates capture a change in the role played by trade protection and an increase in the importance of human capital as globalization progressed. An application of our models illustrates why Mercosur countries have underperformed their peers in attracting FDI.     

The disadvantage of entrants: did transition eliminate it? The case of the Russian footwear industry (1992–2000)

Several studies have analyzed entry in developed capitalist economies coming to the conclusion that entrants are usually smaller, less productive and at higher hazard than incumbents. This study considers if this was the case also in the rather peculiar situation of those firms which entered during the period of transition from planned to market economy, in one of the ex-soviet countries. Additionally this work considers whether or not the uncertain environment generated by transition did activate a process of entry, as situations of uncertainty are generally supposed to do. The main result of this paper is that despite the fact that incumbents were firms created and organized to meet the objectives of the soviet regime, they were not outperformed by subsequently-created firms which were formed to match the needs of a transitional/quasi market economy. These results do not support “vintage” and “liability of obsolescence” models which suggest that new comers are better fitted to match new conditions.

Do central bank foreign exchange interventions affect market expectations?

The aim of this article is to study the impact of the Brazilian central bank swap interventions on the FX market from 2006 to 2013. In this period, these nontraditional interventions were the main FX instrument of the Brazilian Government. Since the central bank operates through a sequence of daily interventions in most of the period, we employ the event study method, which is appropriate to investigate cumulative impact of intervention episodes. We analyse the effects on the risk neutral distribution of BRL-USD exchange rate, which incorporates economic valuation besides the likelihoods. We investigate both changes in level and in the dynamics of the moments. Our tests indicate that interventions have little effects on the exchange rate distribution. We only find evidences of some impact on the dynamics of the mean, volatility and skewness over long horizons when the central bank takes short positions on the exchange rate.