Asymmetric Capital Tax Competition with Profit Shifting

This paper analyses capital tax competition between jurisdictions of different size when multinational firms can shift some fraction of their tax base between them. For the case of revenue maximizing governments, we show that introducing profit shifting will not generally increase downward pressure on tax rates. We find that profit shifting decreases the tax-base sensitivity of the low tax jurisdiction while increasing the sensitivity of the high tax jurisdiction. Tax rates will converge as a result of additional profit shifting opportunities. This will be the case even though in general equilibrium tax rates in both jurisdictions may decrease or increase.     

Scenarios based on sustainability discourses: Constructing alternative consumption and consumer perspectives

This paper describes a research based scenario project on sustainable consumption in Belgium. In the Consentsus project a scenario method was developed and tested by the research team to assess scenarios both as learning and participation tools for sustainable consumption. By using a decomposition analysis a solid ground was laid to adequately summarize three guiding principles on how to reach a (more) sustainable consumption: eco-efficiency, de-commodification and sufficiency. These ‘pure’ strategies – showing significant similarities with concrete discourses – were then translated into a participative process: two expert-driven workshops and interim research yielded three future images of food consumption as well as indications on their boundary conditions. These three images reflect significantly diverging approaches on how to organize practices related to food consumption. This structural diversity allowed us to address an archetypical consumer, i.e. a generalized consumer based on the specificities of the scenarios. These consumer perspectives do not aim at indicating real (even potential) groups, but aim at illustrating how the environment of interactions around the consumer fundamentally changes throughout the three sustainability discourses. It is argued that thinking through alternative modes of consumption is of importance to support and elucidate debate in governance arenas that address transitions towards a more sustainable consumption.     

Export revenue and quality: Firm‐level evidence from developing countries

I combine firm‐level export data from eight low‐income and middle‐income countries to test the relation between export price and export revenue. Across‐firm estimations show a strong positive association between export price and export revenue. Within‐firm estimations show that firms generate larger export revenue from their high‐price products. The positive correlation between export price and export revenue is strong for manufactures, weak for primary commodities, and nonexistent for extractables. Results are robust to using an alternative quality measure and controlling for exporters’ market power.     

Inadequate Bivariate Measures of Health Inequality: The Impact of Income Distribution*

Bivariate measures of health inequality are influenced by changes in two variables: health and a socioeconomic variable, such as income. For these measures, what is reported as an increase in health inequality might just as well be a reduction in income inequality. In particular, several papers have found that socioeconomic health inequalities in Nordic countries are no less than in other European countries. The correct interpretation could just be that income inequality is no higher in Nordic countries than in the rest of Europe. The problem is especially profound when the causality is running from health to income.     

A Dual-Price Demand Theory for Economies under Transition

China adopted a dual-price system shortly after the economic reform started in 1978 to liberalise its price control. This led to the coexistence of both plan and market prices for an identical good in the economy. The conventional demand theory developed based on the pure market economies is not useful in explaining consumers' behaviour in the transitional economies such as China in which both plan and market prices are prevalent. This study develops an alternative demand theory for a dual-price (or dual-track) economy and derives the dual-price Slusky equation that identifies a replacement effect of price liberalisation. This demand theory distinguishes itself from the conventional demand theory and explains the ways in which consumers respond to the price liberalisation during the reform period. The new demand theory shows that the gradual approach to reform is superior to the ‘Big Bang’ approach in terms of reducing the ‘corrected inflation’ during the transition period. The new theory also suggests that the price elasticity of demand is higher in the dual-track system than that in a full market economy, implying that the price elasticity diminishes over the process of price liberalisation. This theory is tested using the Chinese aggregate consumption data.     

Market reforms and consumption puzzles in China

China exhibits above average savings and below average consumption as shares of total economic activity when compared with other countries. At the same time, to create more balanced growth at home and rebalance key bilateral trade and capital flow relationships, China's leadership is trying to increase domestic demand. To complement studies that investigate the high rate of savings in China, this study focuses on the variation in consumption as a share of GDP across provinces between 1979 and 2004. Drawing on well-established consumption theories and work done on savings behavior in China, this paper develops an empirical investigation of the variables hypothesized to influence the pattern of consumption across regions.We find that the normal, economic variables have a small explanatory power if significant at all, while the key variables influencing the macro consumption share are structural, and mostly related to government behavior. For example, local government expenditure on health and education is significant and has a relatively large effect on consumption. Consistent with this we also find a positive relationship between consumption shares and the size of the state sector and the share of tax revenue in GDP. We also find some evidence that financial development has a positive effect on consumption shares. Our results suggest that in order for domestic consumption to be increased in the future, new public and private options to replace the declining security and responsibility of the prior state-dominated system will be needed.     

The Role of the Tourism Industry in Transforming a Rentier to a Long-Term Viable Economy: The Case of Bahrain

During the past four decades, the tourism industry has emerged as one of the leading industries worldwide. In the Arab countries, however, despite its huge potential, the tourism industry is still in its infancy phase. With the exception of only a few countries, until recently most of the Arab countries almost ignored the economic potential of tourism. Since the 1990s, their traditional attitude of neglect toward the tourism industry has undergone a transformation, a fact that was not lost by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Thus, since the mid-1990s, all of the GCC countries, without exception, have been trying to promote their tourism sector, which soon became a prominent economic sector. The paper concentrates on one tourism development case – that of Bahrain – the least ‘rentier’ within the GCC oil-economies. The main research question addressed by this paper is to what extent Bahrain has introduced a cohesive and economically viable tourism industry that contributes to a more sustainable economy of this country. This exploratory paper examines Bahrain's motivation to promote tourism; its tourism comparative advantage; the major difficulties facing Bahrain's further tourism expansion; and the overall role of the tourism industry in the Bahraini economy.     

The integration of sustainability within value management practices: A study of experienced value managers in the GCC countries

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) comprises the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and the states of Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. These countries are fairly similar in terms of socioeconomic, commercial, and infrastructural development. Disappointingly perhaps, their thriving construction industries continue to score poorly in terms of sustainability. Although value management (VM) has been proposed as a potential mechanism for delivering sustainable construction projects in some countries, this idea has not yet been widely put into practice around the world. The aim of this article is to investigate this potential in the GCC countries through interviewing 17 experienced value managers from the GCC. The primary conclusion, derived from the viewpoints of these value managers, is that such an endeavor might be unviable at present, largely due to a lack of awareness with regard to sustainability issues in the GCC. Proposals are therefore provided to assist in a successful integration of sustainability into VM practices in the GCC region.     

Output and unemployment dynamics in transition

This paper examines transition dynamics in a search economy. We contrast two extreme cases: a completely unexpected reform and a fully anticipated reform. We show that announcing the reform in advance leads to stagnation in anticipation and output cycles after the implementation, that are more volatile than had a reform of identical magnitude been implemented immediately. However, the more volatile output trajectory of the anticipated case yields a higher PDV of output than an unanticipated reform of equal magnitude. This suggests that an anticipated reform is better than an unanticipated reform, even though the former induces greater volatility.     

Do monetary policy announcements affect stock prices in emerging market countries? The case of Thailand

We examine the effect of monetary policy announcements in Thailand, which is one of emerging market countries in Asia, on stock prices at the firm level. We find that the expected change, rather than the unexpected change, in interest rates affects stock prices. The stock price response to the interest rate announcement is asymmetric. For instance, the relation between interest rate surprises and stock prices is conditional on the direction of the interest rate change. In general, macroeconomic conditions and firm characteristics cannot explain the stock price reaction to the announcement. In addition, stock prices of firms in different industries appear to react heterogeneously to the interest rate announcement.