Excise taxes,over-shifting,cross-elasticity,and tax revenue

This article examines cross-elasticity effects in excise taxation for markets characterized by monopolistic competition and over-shifting. Extending the constant elasticity demand model to consider cross-elasticity leads to notably different results regarding tax revenue maximization. With nonzero but weak cross-elasticity effects relative to the price elasticity, we derive a higher optimal tax-price ratio compared to prior research. With strong cross-elasticity, revenue can continually be increased by raising the excise tax. Overall, the study offers government greater incentive to use excise taxes to obtain revenue.     

NATURAL RESOURCE ABUNDANCE,INSTITUTIONS AND TAX REVENUE MOBILISATION IN SUB‐SAHARA AFRICA

The contribution of natural resources to tax revenues has generally yielded mixed results in the literature. This study asserts that the missing link to explaining these differences is the quality of institutions. More resource revenues reduce tax revenues when institutions are poor. Using an interaction term for natural resources and institutional quality, we show that institutions are decisive for the contribution of natural resources to tax revenue mobilisation. The interaction effect is statistically significant after controlling for per capita gross domestic product (GDP), an alternative measure of quality of institutions and additional regressors. This finding is robust to different econometric specifications and the type of natural resources.     

WHO’S THE BOSS? HOUSEHOLD DISTRIBUTION OF POWER IN A NON‐COOPERATIVE FRAMEWORK

When labour market participation influences bargaining power in a household, the male and the female labour supplies can be either positively or negatively related. If negatively related, possibilities include: ‘balance of power’, the complete dominance of one member, and circumstances where inequity persists with incomplete dominance. If effort levels are positively sloped, it is possible to have equilibrium at either high or low effort levels leading to equity. The effects of economic development and wage discrimination are also discussed.     

关税理论的研究综述与评析

从历史渊源上来看，历史上存在着自由贸易关税和保护贸易关税理论的分歧、争论甚至是对立。但就长期的动态利益而言，贸易自由化符合各国的利益，必然成为各国经济发展的主流趋势。所以，WTO原则约束下公平和贸易自由化是对外贸易税收调整的主流方向，但各国在对GATT/WTO的实践中不乏“例外”和“灵活性”，这决定了公平和贸易自由化只能是相对的、渐进的。     

Structural and executional drivers of downstream revenue

Revenue flows that occur at other related organizational units and over time are an important part of customer profitability analysis and resource planning. This study analyzes downstream revenue generated from establishing a series of additional organizational units. The setting is a central hospital which established a group of specialty outreach clinics. Using a specially-collected time-series database I show two distinct patterns, depending on the clinic's specialty. One type triggers immediate incremental downstream revenue to the clinic's sponsoring department. The other type of clinic generates revenue that is smaller in value, later in time and mostly in departments not associated with the sponsoring department's medical specialty. Structural and executional clinic characteristics such as distance and clinic frequency differentially affect the amount of revenue generated, implying a need for tailoring performance measures to “clinic type”. Overall, my results suggest caution in developing performance measures that include financial impact in other organizational units – context matters even in a relatively homogenous setting of specialty clinics in one hospital system.     

The role of domestic demand in the economic growth of Malaysia: a cointegration analysis

For the past four decades (1961-2000), the Malaysian economy grew at an impressive average rate of 6.8% per annum. The rapid growth has been attributed, in part, to the tremendous success in the export-oriented industrialization policy. Several empirical studies on export-led growth for Malaysia have, however, led to inconclusive and mixed results. This may be due to the exclusion of domestic demand in the bivariate or multivariate models used in the studies. This study re-examines the role of domestic demand in economic growth in Malaysia. Using a three-variable cointegration analysis, the study shows that there exist short run bilateral causalities among the three variables, which implies that both the export-led growth and domestic demand-generated growth hypotheses are at least valid in the short run. On the other hand, the results are not supportive of the export-led growth hypothesis in the long run. Instead, the highly significant positive impact of domestic expenditure on economic growth implies that use of domestic demand as the catalyst for growth is appropriate.     

我国加入WTO后结算业务所面临的挑战和对策

随着中国加入WTO后，我国的市场将进一步扩大开放，这给我国的结算业务提供了广阔的空间，但同时也带来了许多新的挑战。本主要对国内结算和国际结算进行了分析和比较，找出两的不同点，并分析了国内结算和国际结算的差距。提出了中国加入WTO之后，我国结算业务面临的挑战和发展对策。     

Contests with Multi-tasking*

The standard contest model in which participants compete in a single dimension is well understood and documented. Multi‐dimension extensions are possible but are liable to increase the complexity of the contest structure, mitigating one of its main advantages: simplicity. In this paper we propose an extension in which competition ensues in several dimensions, and a competitor that wins a certain number of these is awarded a prize. The amount of information needed to run the contest is hence limited to the number of dimensions won by each player. We look at the design of this contest from the point of view of maximising effort in the contest (per dimension and totally), and show that there will be a tendency to run small contests with few dimensions. The standard Tullock model and its results are encompassed by our framework.     

我国家电产业出口发展战略浅析:比较优势还是竞争优势

近年来,我国家电产品出口发展态势良好,但是也存在一定的问题,而问题的解决则依赖于其出口发展战略的合理选择。通过分析比较优势和竞争优势两种发展战略对当前我国家电产业的适用性,笔者认为:一方面,要继续发挥我国的比较优势,更好实现我国家电产业的升级;另一方面,要以竞争优势为发展方向,把我国家电产业做大做强。     

河北省分税制财政体制改革研究

河北省分税制改革运行 6年来 ,取得了一定的成效 ,但由于政府职责划分不清 ,收入、支出和转移支付方面还存在不少问题。因此 ,应在明确政府职责划分原则基础上 ,合理界定收入、支出范围 ,完善转移支付制度 ,并建立相关的配套措施 ,以规范河北省的分税制管理体制。