A Procedure for Negotiating Pollution Reduction under Information Asymmetry. Surface Water Quality Case

This paper considers an alternative approachto surface water quality management whensociety is faced with the need to reduce waterpollution in a region with a complicatedregulatory environment. The paper is focusedon a specific kind of negotiation betweenpolluters and an authority, leading toresolution of the problem when there is theinformation asymmetry between the authorityand the polluters, i.e., the true pollutionabatement costs are known to the pollutersonly. This paper reports a laboratory experimentalcase prepared at the Department ofEnvironmental Economics, the University ofEconomics in Prague. The comparison withtheoretical computed first-best results underconditions of full information is included.Political and economic aspects of thesuggested approach are also discussed.     

Effects of R & D Spillovers on the Profitability of Firms

This cross-section study of a sample of 278 firms from the COMPUSTAT II database explores the relationship between a firm's profitability and other variables, notably its own R & D capital, knowledge and market spillovers and appropriability. The proxy for knowledge spillovers is based on technological distance. Market spillovers are based on a patent input-output matrix. Both spillover proxies combine information on R & D expenditures and patent counts.The results do not reject the hypothesis that R & D has a direct, positive effect on profitability, especially in industries with effective patent protection. Information spillovers affect profits negatively, market spillovers positively.     

Estimating the revenue costs of tax treaties in developing countries

(12764) Petr Janský Marek Šedivý Tax treaties between countries influence how much tax revenues governments receive from multinational enterprises. These treaties often reduce the withholding tax rates on outgoing dividend and interest payments. We provide illustrative estimates of costs for these two taxes for 14 developing countries in sub‐Saharan Africa and Asia in a first multi‐country comparison of this kind. These might be overestimates because we assume that foreign direct investments are not influenced by the tax treaties. We estimate that the highest potential tax revenue losses are within hundreds of millions US$ and around 0.1% of GDP, with Philippines incurring the highest losses both in US$ and relative to GDP. We also find that around 95% of the losses is due to dividends and that only four investor countries—Japan, Netherlands, Switzerland and Singapore—are together responsible for more than half of the losses. We discuss the limitations of these estimates and how future research could improve their quality as well as coverage.     

Testing for Latent Factors in Models with Autocorrelation and Heteroskedasticity of Unknown Form

This article considers the problem of testing for latent factors or reduced rank in a broad class of (multivariate linear stationary) time-series models, wherein model errors have autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity of unknown form. It is easy to motivate these models and methods in the context of finance models, and we illustrate with a familiar macromodel of asset returns, proposed previously by Chen, Roll, and Ross. Unfortunately, previously used tests for reduced rank are not sufficiently robust, so we examine two heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation-consistent (HAC) methods, a HAC version of Hansen's GMM test and a lesser known but more user-friendly minimum-distance or ratio of asymptotic densities (RAD) test. We recommend the RAD test, for which we supply computer code. In application, the tests lend more HAC-robust support to the hypothesis that multiple factors drive the link between the macroeconomy and the returns on bonds and stocks.     

THE KNOWLEDGE-CAPITAL MODEL OF FDI: A TIME VARYING COEFFICIENTS APPROACH

The present article reexamines some of the issues regarding the Knowledge-Capital Model that encompasses both horizontal and vertical Foreign Direct Investment. The empirical support for this model is however mixed. This article proposes a new way of estimating coefficients by allowing them to vary over time. The estimation results obtained using data from 30 OECD countries for the period from 1982 to 2003 confirm that these coefficients cannot be considered as constant over time and that the vertical component of the Knowledge-Capital Model is relevant.     

R&D,Interindustry and International Technology Spillovers and the Total Factor Productivity Growth of Manufacturing Industries in Canada, 1974-1989

The paper presents new econometric evidence on the relationship between total factor productivity growth and the R&D expenditures of Canadian manufacturing industries in the presence of interindustry and international spillovers of technology. In contrast to studies that presume that international spillovers are incorporated in imports of intermediate and/or capital equipment goods, the present paper assumes that the principal channel of transmission of new technology is foreign direct investment. Three original proxies for international spillovers use information on patenting, the size and the origin of foreign ownership in the host country and the R&D expenditures in the country of origin. The results suggest that the nexus between industry's own R&D expenditures and the TFP growth is significant and positive, especially for the process-related R&D. Domestic interindustry spillovers of new technology have a larger effect on TFP than industry's own R&D expenditures. All three proxies for international technology spillovers are associated positively and significantly with TFP growth. However, international spillovers contribute to TFP growth less than domestic interindustry spillovers and less than own process-related R&D.