A Case Study: Enhancing Laos' Tourism Sector Performance Through Destination Human Resource Development

Tourism in the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Laos) is a relatively new phenomenon that commenced in earnest in the late 1990s. A decade later, the country's tourism portfolio is dominated by regional visitors originating from neighbouring China, Thailand and Vietnam who generally tend to come in large numbers, are relatively low spenders and register short average length of stays. In order to reap the fiscal benefits of tourism and sustain the nation's fragile cultural and ecological makeup, the Government of Laos is being challenged to establish ways to shift the balance of its tourism demand to more profitable and lower impact market segments. A human resource development strategy published by the Lao National Tourism Administration in collaboration with Luxembourg Development Cooperation suggests that a sustained investment in people will improve tourism sector service quality, which in turn will result in increased industry profitability. This paper explores the existing human resource environment in Laos' tourism sector and outlines the required actions by various stakeholders to achieve improved sector performance and stewardship of the country's fragile culture and environment.     

Standardization,Customization and Revenue from Foreign Markets

Abstract

This study develops theory and empirically tests the influence of heterogeneity (the degree of standardization or customization) of firm outputs on the globalization entry mode decisions, and receipt of revenues from foreign markets. To insure sufficient variance in the sample while also controlling for extraneous sectoral and national variables, this study obtained and analyzed cross-sectional data from 190 U.S. based firms in the environmental control industry. The findings indicate that the outputs of global firms are significantly less heterogeneous than the outputs of domestic firms, but that heterogeneity is not significantly related to the receipt of foreign revenues, or to the use of a higher control entry mode. These findings suggest that firms with more standardized outputs are more likely to globalize, but that standardization fails to help firms create any additional value in international markets compared to firms with more heterogeneous outputs.     

Government Expenditures and Revenues: Evidence of Fractional Cointegration in an Asymmetric Modeling

In this paper, we examine the relationship between the US government expenditures and revenues using a fractional cointegration framework. In doing so, we permit a much richer degree of flexibility in the dynamic adjustment process toward equilibrium than in the classical case of cointegration. Moreover, we relax the assumption of a symmetric adjustment process throughout the use of threshold autoregressive (TAR) and momentum threshold autoregressive (M-TAR) models in the error correction representation of the process. The results show that both individual series are non-stationary I(1) and we do not find evidence of cointegration of any degree. However, if we take into account a structural break at 1973(2), fractional cointegration is found if the underlying process is autocorrelated, especially in the asymmetric modeling.

An Analysis of the Corporate Income Tax Policy of Less Developed Countries

Unlike in developed countries, corporate rather than personal tax is the greater source of public finance for less developed countries (LDCs). This paper analyzes the corporate income tax policy for a large panel of LDCs. The analysis shows that although the corporate tax rate has been decreasing, corporate tax revenues have been increasing. Contrary to standard tax competition theory, there is also strong evidence that corporate income taxes are increasing with respect to the LDCs’ openness, as measured by capital mobility. The analysis also shows that the corporate tax rate is increasing with respect to the personal tax rate, as income‐shifting theory predicts.     

Analysing passenger behaviour towards the catering industry: Implications for airport management

This research note seeks to provide the most detailed analysis yet of passenger behaviour towards the airport catering industry. With the broadest sample to date among similar studies, namely 37,000 passengers surveyed at 8 different airports with 38 explanatory variables, a large number of conclusions have been drawn. The most important of these is that the factors that most influence a passenger's using a catering establishment during his/her stay at an airport are his/her physiological needs and social reasons. However, contrary to what was anticipated a priori, socioeconomic status only has a moderate influence, while having a wide range and variety of foodstuffs on offer does not result in passengers consuming more. It is also observed that low-cost airline passengers consume less than those of traditional airlines, probably due to the stress related to boarding with these types of airlines.     

Property price effects of a national wildlife refuge: Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Massachusetts

The amenity value of proximity to a National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in central Middlesex County, Massachusetts is estimated and compared to the values of proximity to five other open space types, including agricultural land, cemeteries, conservation land, golf courses, and sport/recreation parks. A hedonic model is used to explore the relationships among residential property values and proximity to these distinct types of open space. Open space characteristics in the empirical model include measures of continuous distance from each property to the nearest open space of each type and an index describing the diversity of open space types within neighborhoods of 100 and 1000 meters around a home. Results reveal that a property located 100 meters closer to the NWR than a neighboring property has a price premium of $984. Further, proximity to the NWR is valued more than proximity to agricultural land, cemeteries, and conservation land. No significant differences are found among the values of proximity to the NWR, golf courses, and sport/recreation parks.     

Third party ancillary revenues in the airline sector: An exploratory study

Some airlines, especially Low Cost Carriers (LCCs), have earned significant profits from revenues derived from ancillary revenues. However, to date few have been able to derive a meaningful portion of revenues from 3^rd party ancillaries. The key to increasing these revenues comes from an understanding of passenger willingness to pay for 3^rd party products/services, coupled with increasing customer awareness and consequently the all-important customer conversion. This study assesses the 3^rd party ancillary services that passengers are more willing to purchase, along with the potential offers that might increase their willingness to purchase specific 3^rd party services. A mixed methods approach was used consisting of a passenger survey and nine expert interviews. The main findings are that car hire, airport parking, and the sale of hotel rooms had the most significant associations with customer willingness to pay. It was also found that there was a significant association between specific offers and increased willingness to purchase. The 15% discount off a future flight, and to a lesser extent, hotel price guarantees were the most significant. Expert interviewees confirmed that the future sustainability of this revenue stream for airlines is centred on mobile digital devices, customer conversion, and exploiting potential market opportunities.     

A comparison of nominal and indexed debt under fiscal constraints

This paper makes a welfare comparison between the issuance of price-indexed and nominal public debt in the presence of fiscal constraints, viz. a debt constraint, a deficit constraint and a combination of both. Distortionary taxes or public consumption are regulated to avoid the violation of the relevant fiscal constraint(s). Under a debt constraint indexed debt is generally preferred, while under a deficit constraint the results are more mixed. Introducing inflation persistence and raising the maturity of the debt tend to increase the magnitude of the welfare differences between the two types of debt. Welfare differences are further affected by the degree to which public consumption and tax revenues are indexed to actual versus structural nominal GDP.     

Tax multipliers: Pitfalls in measurement and identification

To analyze the pitfalls in measuring and identifying tax shocks, we build a novel value-added tax rate dataset for the period 1980–2009. The problem of identification (i.e., changes in tax policy not triggered by output fluctuations) is clearly disentangled from the problem of measurement (i.e., finding a tax policy variable under the direct control of policymakers). On the identification front, our results favor the use of narratives à la Romer and Romer (2010). On the measurement front, our findings support the use of tax rates as the true measure of tax policy as opposed to revenue-based measures, such as cyclically adjusted revenues.     

Revisiting the redistribution effects of intergovernmental fiscal transfers: evidence from Taiwan

This paper employs a panel of 23 local governments in Taiwan over 1998–2010 to re-estimate the redistribution effects of intergovernmental fiscal transfers by considering a self-financing resources of local government as the transition variable in panel smooth transition regression models. Empirical results show that the income (or tax revenues) redistribution effects of fiscal transfer policies are nonlinear and vary with time and across local governments. The grants from central government can improve income and tax revenues distribution of local governments; however, the centrally allotted tax revenues have inverse effects and the total fiscal transfers have ambiguous effects. The total fiscal transfer is a proper policy instrument for improving income redistribution, and the grants for improving tax revenues redistribution. However, high self-financing resources ratios are harmful for these redistribution effects.