Fiscal Equalization and Tax Enforcement

In many countries organized as federations, fiscal equalization schemes have been implemented to mitigate vertical or horizontal imbalances. Such schemes usually imply that the member states of the federation can only partly internalize (marginal) tax revenue before redistribution. Aside from the internalized marginal revenue, referred to as the marginal tax‐back rate, the remainder is redistributed. We investigate the extent to which state‐level authorities in such federation under‐exploit their tax bases. By means of a stylized model, we show that the member states have an incentive to align the effective tax rates on their residents with the level of the marginal tax‐back rate. We empirically test the model using state‐level and micro‐level taxpayer data, OLS regressions and natural experiments. Our empirical findings support the results from our theoretical model. Particularly, we find that states with a higher marginal tax‐back rate exploit the tax base to a higher extent.     

众里寻他!?——一个基于婚姻匹配理论的综述

家庭作为社会经济生活的最小单位,继Becker的开创性研究之后,成为经济学研究的新领域。对于婚姻的研究不仅涉及到微观个体的选择及福祉,而且也通过影响人力资本积累、收入分配等影响社会不平等。通过梳理婚姻的匹配模型、婚姻的形成方式、婚姻带来的转移支付以及婚姻的解体,文章对相关研究进行了综述。并立足于我国婚姻是两个家庭之间的联姻这种特有现象,结合我国目前劳动力流动和城市化带来的经济发展背景下,由于户籍导致的城乡分割引致的特有的婚姻匹配模式,对于未来的研究进行了展望。     

供应链环境下产品创新的合作匹配模型

文章以供应链环境下企业间的产品创新为研究对象,分析了供应链环境下产品合作创新的影响因素,将供应链合作创新模式概括为技术转让、合作开发、创新网络、技术联盟、共建实体等5种。通过合作模式演进图描述了企业在技术、资金、人员和组织形式4方面深入合作、不断演进的过程。最后,提出了供应链产品创新的匹配模型。     

A specification test for the propensity score using its distribution conditional on participation

Propensity score matching has become a popular method for the estimation of average treatment effects. In empirical applications, researchers almost always impose a parametric model for the propensity score. This practice raises the possibility that the model for the propensity score is misspecified and therefore the propensity score matching estimator of the average treatment effect may be inconsistent. We show that the common practice of calculating estimates of the densities of the propensity score conditional on the participation decision provides a means for examining whether the propensity score is misspecified. In particular, we derive a restriction between the density of the propensity score among participants and the density among nonparticipants. We show that this restriction between the two conditional densities is equivalent to a particular orthogonality restriction and derive a formal test based upon it. The resulting test is shown via a simulation study to have dramatically greater power than competing tests for many alternatives. The principal disadvantage of this approach is loss of power against some alternatives.     

Choosing propensity score matching over regression adjustment for causal inference: when,why and how it makes sense

Summary

This study identified when regression adjustment fails to adjust adequately for differences in observed covariates and where propensity score matching is the only alternative.

Multivariate analysis might fail to adjust for observed confounders if:

• 1. The means of the propensity scores in the two groups are more than one-half a standard deviation apart unless distributions of the covariates in both groups are nearly symmetric, sample sizes of the two groups are approximately the same and distributions of the covariates in the two groups have similar variances;

• 2. The ratio of the propensity score variances in the two groups is significantly different from one;

• 3. The ratio of residual variances in the two groups after adjusting for the propensity score is significantly different from one.

Conducted retrospective analysis showed that the treatment effect would be an estimated $305 (or 26%) less if the misspecified outcome model had been chosen.     

双边市场中交易配比的机制与效率—基于全球最大专业市场的研究

本文基于对全球最大的专业市场———义乌“中国小商品城”市场经营户、客商及相关主体所作的万余份问卷调查,对双边市场中交易配比、外部性和代理人数量关系的理论进行了经验分析。结果表明,采购商数量的增加会促使其提高采购规模和降低采购频率,且显著地与经营户的年均销售额、销售倍增数正相关;电子商务平台的应用减少了进入实体市场采购的客商比重,买卖双方之间具有较为显著的交叉正外部性和群内负外部性。同时,本研究结果还显示表征市场特征的产品质量、经营环境、电子商务、物流配送等变量与市场外部性强度呈正相关关系,专业市场本身品牌的塑造和经营户自属品牌的建设对于增强买卖双方进入中间交易平台具有较强的正效应。     

Some Reflections on Student Evaluation of Teaching

In this brief article Professor Villard summarizes some recent research in the evaluation of teaching and offers comments on the results. He also comments on the impact of the Open Admissions policy at City University of New York, and promulgates Villard's First and Second Laws.     

Schumpeter,Schumacher and the Greening of Technology

We propose a semantic patent claim analysis that can examine patents for possible infringements and identify which needs to be manually perused. So far, numerous approaches have been devised to systemise this burden, but have not been useful in practice because of a lack of consideration of semi-structure of patent claim data and claim element-based procedure of adjudicating patent infringement. At the heart of our method is a hierarchical keyword vector for representing the dependency relationships among claim elements (as well as unstructured textual information) and a tree matching algorithm for comparing claim elements of patents. A case study of the patents about DNA chip technology shows our method has considerable advantages in terms of accuracy and significance. We believe the suggested method could be employed in various research areas and serve as a starting point for developing more general models.     

Entry to foreign markets and productivity: Evidence from a matched sample of Turkish manufacturing firms

We examine the effects of international trading activities of firms on creating productivity gains in Turkey by using a recent firm-level data set over the period 2003–2010. We establish treatment models and investigate the productivity improvements of firms through trade by using propensity score matching techniques together with difference-in-difference estimates. Three different groups of treatment are constructed: (1) firms that are involved only with import activities, (2) firms that are involved only with export activities and (3) firms that are involved with both export and import activities. The results of the study suggest that both exporting and importing have positive significant effects on total factor productivity (TFP) and labour productivity (LP) of firms. Importing is found to have a greater impact on productivity of firms compared to exporting. Further, two-way trade is found to have more significant effects than those of one-way trade on firm productivity. Finally, our results indicate that international trade has greater impact on LP rather than TFP of firms.     

Impact of fit,involvement, and tenure on job satisfaction and turnover intention

This study examined the interactive effects of need–supplies fit, job involvement, and job tenure on service sector employees' job satisfaction and turnover intention in Turkey. Survey data collected from 252 employees who worked in three different banks and one logistics company operating in Istanbul, Turkey, confirm the three-way interaction in predicting employees' turnover intention. In particular, the effect of needs–supplies fit on turnover intention was found to be more strongly positive for longer tenured, highly involved employees. Results also reveal that while the three-way interaction does not predict job satisfaction, the two-way interaction between needs–supplies fit and job involvement is significant. Specifically, needs–supplies fit had a stronger effect on the job satisfaction of highly job-involved employees than those with lower levels of involvement. Certain implications of these results, as well as avenues for future research, are discussed.