Motivations for corporate social responsibility reporting by MNC subsidiaries in an emerging country: The case of Bangladesh

While many studies of the motivations behind the corporate social responsibility reporting (CSRR) practices of large corporations have been reported internationally, few have focussed on multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiaries. Most importantly, we still do not know how host country institutional norms, or parent corporation policies, influence MNC subsidiaries embarking upon CSRR. By integrating legitimacy theory (LT) and neo-institutional theory (NIT) explanations, this paper offers a theoretical framework for investigating the CSRR practices of MNC subsidiaries in general, and provides empirical evidence on the nature and motivations of subsidiaries’ CSRR practices in Bangladesh, a developing country. Employing a case study method and using qualitative data, the study finds that CSRR practice in Bangladeshi MNC subsidiaries is limited, consisting mainly of employee information. This observation mirrors the overall CSRR trend in Bangladesh. A desire for internal legitimacy emerges as the primary motivation for CSRR practice in MNC subsidiaries. In particular, the external host country environment of the Bangladeshi subsidiaries seems to be a major limitation in the development of CSRR.     

Formal and informal appropriation mechanisms: The role of openness and innovativeness

This paper analyses how firms’ degree of openness and innovativeness influence their use of formal and informal appropriation mechanisms. Patents, trademarks, copyrights, and design rights are formal appropriation mechanisms. Secrecy, lead-time, and complexity are examples of informal appropriation mechanisms. Both external search breadth and depth are positively associated with firms’ use of informal appropriation mechanisms, while only external search breadth is positively associated with formal appropriation mechanisms. Firms’ degree of radical (incremental) innovation orientation is negatively (positively) associated with their use of formal appropriation mechanisms. Analysis of the joint impact of openness and innovativeness, suggests that for radical innovators it is external search breadth (rather than depth) that has a positive association with the use of informal appropriation mechanisms. In contrast, for radical innovators external search depth (rather than breadth) is associated with the use of formal appropriation mechanisms. For incremental innovators, external search breadth (rather than depth) is associated with the use of both formal and informal appropriation mechanisms.     

Catching up through the development of technology standard: The case of TD-SCDMA in China

This paper explored the key factors affecting catching up through technology standard development by studying the evolution of TD-SCDMA, one of the three international standards of 3G mobile communications, in China. It was found that this was a complex co-evolution process between firm strategy and government policy aimed mainly at solving the challenges of late-comer disadvantages. The paper also examined the unique features of this co-evolution process, including the importance of the informal social network of non-customer stakeholders, and discussed the theoretical and practical implications of the key findings.     

非正规就业对服务业发展的影响分析--基于河北省2003-2012年的数据

中国目前正处在经济转型的关键期,近年来的快速城镇化和产业结构的深入调整使得就业压力日渐突出,非正规就业已经逐步成为城镇就业的重要趋势。文章基于河北省2003-2012年的相关数据,探讨分析了河北省非正规就业的发展规模、行业特征及其对服务业发展的影响。研究结果表明：非正规就业的规模近年来一直在不断增加;非正规就业目前主要集中在制造业和传统服务行业;服务业增加值和非正规就业规模之间显著相关;固定资产投资比重、经营业态的创新和改进可能对非正规就业集中的传统行业的劳动生产率提高有促进作用。     

小企业民间借贷行为与制度安排

针对我国部分小企业所涉足的高利率民间借贷问题,本文按照现代经济学解释经济现象的基本思路和方法--现象观察、基本假设、建模与推导以及结论等,对之进行严格论证.本文认为,我国小企业融资困难是必然的,但这只是小企业参与民间借贷的充分条件;小企业参与民间借贷更多地是源于企业资金的"事后缺口",民间贷方参与小企业的未来利润分享就构成了民间借贷过程中的利率决定因素;民间借贷的风险主要源于借方的市场风险和道德风险,且只能通过贷方才能转嫁给公众,因此,约束、激励以及保护贷方可以使民间借贷之间的风险内部化;在目前的中国金融环境下,政府通过为小企业制定相关融资规则和提供"平台"--建立区域性民间借贷市场,比批准小银行或组建担保体系更能解决小企业融资问题.     

基于双因素理论的非正式组织管理探究

非正式组织是存在于正式组织当中的依靠感情和非正式规则联结的群体,非正式组织的存在会对组织的行为产生巨大影响,运用双因素理论对非正式组织产生的原因进行归因分析,可以看出既有保健性因素的存在,又有激励性因素的存在。不同的组织有不同的外部环境与内部条件,这导致非正式组织产生的原因各不相同,针对不同的非正式组织,采取不同的措施,其作用效果也不相同。     

Microfinance spillovers: A model of competition in informal credit markets with an application to Indian villages

Despite widespread interest in the development of microfinance, spillover effects on the non-using population and redistributive issues remain largely unexplored. I study a competition game between microfinance institutions (MFIs) offering joint-liability loans and moneylenders offering individual loans in presence of adverse selection. I show that one unintended consequence of the entry of a microfinance sector in local credit markets can be to trigger an increase in the equilibrium informal interest rate, because MFIs tend to attract a disproportionately-safe share of the borrower pool away from incumbent moneylenders. The existence of such composition externality depends crucially on the size of the microfinance sector and the risk composition of the borrower pool. The model predicts a non-linearly increasing relationship between informal interest rates and MFIs' capacity in relatively safe credit markets, and no relationship in risky villages. I show evidence supporting these predictions, using a first-hand panel database that records all credit transactions over 8 years for a sample of about 1000 households living in Indian villages with extensive space and time variation in the size of their microfinance sector.     

Tax enforcement,technology, and the informal sector

Theoretical models of the informal sector mostly assume—or end up with—a positive correlation between a measure of taxes and the size of the informal sector. However, some recent empirical studies associate higher taxes with a smaller informal sector size. In this paper, we build a theoretical framework—an extension to a two-sector growth model—which allows us to unravel the negative correlation between informal sector size and taxes. We find that (a) a higher degree of tax enforcement, (b) a higher productivity of formal sector households, and (c) a lower physical capital depreciation rate make for a negative relation between these variables. Our results suggest that enforcement and technological factors are likely candidates to account for this relationship.     

Tax-tariff reform with costs of tax administration

As is broadly recognised, the straightforward application of the Diamond–Mirrlees (1971) production efficiency theorem implies that when lump-sum taxation is not available, then it is optimal for the government in a small open economy to rely on taxes on the net demand of households rather than on border taxes to finance its resource requirements. However, the theorem does not hold when taxation is associated with administrative costs. The present paper explores the implications for optimal taxation and for desirable directions of tax-tariff reform of taking into account the costs of tax administration in countries at different levels of economic development. The paper clarifies the reasons for, and lends support to, the criticism by Stiglitz (Presentation to Congress of International Institute of Public Finance, Prague, 2003) of the IMF and the World Bank’s recommendation to developing countries to adopt VAT to replace border taxes.      

Pollution and informal economy

In this study, we investigate the relationship between the size of the informal economy and the level of environmental pollution/energy use. To this end, we first use different indicators of environmental pollution along with a measure of energy use intensity in a panel dataset consisting of 152 countries over the period 1999–2009 and empirically examine the relationship between pollution and the shadow economy. The estimation results show that there is an inverse-U relationship between the size of the informal economy and environmental pollution, that is, small and large sizes of the informal economy are associated with lower environmental pollution and medium levels of informality are associated with higher levels of environmental pollution. Next, we build a two sector dynamic general equilibrium model to suggest an economic mechanism for this observation. Our model identifies two channels through which informality might affect environmental pollution: The scale effect, whereby a larger (smaller) informal economy size is associated with a lower (higher) level of environmental pollution, and the deregulation effect, whereby a larger (smaller) informal economy is associated with higher (lower) pollution levels. As these two effects work in opposite directions, the changing relative strength of one with respect to the informal sector size creates the inverted-U relationship between pollution indicators and informality.