Aid, Dutch disease, and manufacturing growth

We examine the effects of aid on the growth of manufacturing, using a methodology that exploits the variation within countries and across manufacturing sectors, and corrects for possible reverse causality. We find that aid inflows have systematic adverse effects on a country's competitiveness, as reflected in the lower relative growth rate of exportable industries. We provide some evidence suggesting that the channel for these effects is the real exchange rate appreciation caused by aid inflows. We conjecture that this may explain, in part, why it is hard to find robust evidence that foreign aid helps countries grow.     

A field experiment to explore the effects of detection and penalties communications and framing among Washington State retail firms

The Washington Department of Revenue facilitated a field experiment to explore opportunities to increase Use Tax and Business and Occupation (B&O) Tax compliance by retail industry firms. The experiment tested two enforcement strategies (actually put in place by the State of Washington): communication of noncompliance penalties and announcement of an enhanced detection initiative. Of special interest was whether the compliance initiatives would differentially influence firms in divergent financial positions (increasing versus decreasing revenues). Findings were consistent with the gain/loss framing concept of prospect theory: the elevated enforcement initiatives increased both actual reported Washington State Use taxes and B&O Taxes more for firms with declining revenues (loss frame) than for firms with raising revenues (gain frame). Historically the Use Tax has had a low rate of compliance while the B&O Tax has had a high rate of compliance; thus we tested two very different taxes. The results of the experiment suggest that revenue agencies with limited resources may benefit from focusing greater compliance enhancement efforts on firms with declining revenues as more tax dollars will be generated from these taxpayers. For tax researchers, this experiment demonstrates that gain/loss tax framing can occur in nature by means other than withholding.     

Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions Over Geography and Integration in Economic Development

We estimate the respective contributions of institutions, geography, and trade in determining income levels around the world, using recently developed instrumental variables for institutions and trade. Our results indicate that the quality of institutions trumps everything else. Once institutions are controlled for, conventional measures of geography have at best weak direct effects on incomes, although they have a strong indirect effect by influencing the quality of institutions. Similarly, once institutions are controlled for, trade is almost always insignificant, and often enters the income equation with the wrong (i.e., negative) sign. We relate our results to recent literature, and where differences exist, trace their origins to choices on samples, specification, and instrumentation.     

Predicting the level of B2B e-commerce in industrial organizations

Through the use of business-to-business electronic commerce (B2B e-commerce), leading companies are transforming interorganizational transaction processing, trading, and collaboration into a competitive advantage. The research empirically examines several models with B2B e-commerce overall use as the dependent variable and innovation characteristics, context, channel factors, and organizational structure as the predictor variables. The results demonstrate that compatibility with existing systems, cooperative norms with customers, lateral integration within a firm, technocratic specialization, and decentralization of information technology decisions facilitate B2B e-commerce overall use. In addition, large firms are more likely than small firms to have greater levels of B2B e-commerce and firms are more likely to use B2B e-commerce with customers that use recommendations rather than threats to encourage e-commerce use.