Tax Competition and Redistribution in a Two-Country Endogenous-Growth Model

This paper examines the effects of policy coordinationin a two-country world with endogenous growth and imperfect capitalmobility. Redistribution is financed by a source-based capital-incometax. Comparing the cases in which countries do and do not coordinatetheir fiscal policies, it is shown that redistribution can beinefficiently high if fiscal policies are not coordinated. Thisis because the negative effects of fiscal policy on home savingsaffect economic growth abroad by inducing a decline in foreigninvestment. This externality can dominate the well-known tax-baseexternality.     

Capital mobility,wage bargaining,and social insurance policies in an economic union

In a two-country model with mobile capital we analyse decentralized social insurance policies. These policies are a compromise between the preferences of workers and capital owners. Due to wage bargaining, worker-based social insurance contributions are borne by capital owners. These contributions affect the profitability of investment, and consequently the direction and size of capital flows. Countries will take account of these effects in determining social insurance policy. Noncooperative decision making results in tax competition and an underprovision of social insurance. In addition, increasing economic integration, represented by increasing capital mobility, could imply a divergence of social insurance levels in the two countries.     

THE CASE FOR PAY-AS-YOU-GO PENSIONS IN A SERVICE ECONOMY

The elderly consume more labour‐intensive services than young individuals. This makes them vulnerable to rising costs of services due to higher wages, which can be caused by increased capital accumulation. This paper shows that in a model with a service sector, the golden‐rule capital stock is lower and dynamic inefficiency is more likely to occur than in the conventional one‐sector model. This implies that in many cases, a positive Pay‐As‐You‐Go tax maximises long‐run welfare in a service economy. Calculations based on data from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands show that the long‐run optimal degree of funding coincides with the current situation in these countries.     

Indigenous Peoples,Resource Extraction and Sustainable Development: An Ethical Approach

Resource extraction companies worldwide are involved with Indigenous peoples. Historically these interactions have been antagonistic, yet there is a growing public expectation for improved ethical performance of resource industries to engage with Indigenous peoples. (Crawley and Sinclair, Journal of Business Ethics 45, 361–373 (2003)) proposed an ethical model for human resource practices with Indigenous peoples in Australian mining companies. This paper expands on this work by re-framing the discussion within the context of sustainable development, extending it to Canada, and generalizing to other resource industries. We argue that it is unethical to sacrifice the viability of Indigenous cultures for industrial resource extraction; it is ethical to engage with indigenous peoples in a manner consistent with their wishes and needs as they perceive them. We apply these ideas to a case study in the coastal temperate rainforest of Clayoquot Sound, British Columbia, Canada. In this case a scientific panel comprised of Nuu-Chah-Nulth elders, forest scientists and management professionals, achieved full consensus on developing sustainable forest practice standards by drawing equally on Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge and Western science in the context of one of the most heated and protracted environmental conflicts in Canadian history. The resulting sustainable forest practice standards were later adopted by leading forestry firms operating on the coast. Our analysis of this scientific panels success provides the basis for advancing an ethical approach to sustainable development with Indigenous peoples. This ethical approach is applicable to companies working in natural resource industries where the territories of Indigenous peoples are involved.David Lertzman Ph.D. is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Environmental Management and Sustainable Development and Senior Associate with the TransCanada International Institute for Resource Industries and Sustainability Studies at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary. He teaches courses on Sustainable Development With Indigenous Peoples at the Graduate and Undergraduate levels, and in the MSc Program in Sustainable Energy Development for Latin America and the Caribbean. Dr. Lertzman also teaches a Wilderness Retreat on Leadership for Sustainable Development in the MBA program. He is a private consultant and has worked in many Indigenous communities, mostly in Western Canada.Harrie Vredenburg Ph.D. is Professor and Suncor Energy Chair in Competitive Strategy and Sustainable Development at the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary where he is also Director of the TransCanada International Institute for Resource Industries and Sustainability Studies. He teaches in Haskaynes MBA and PhD programs. He is also Academic Chair of the MSc program in Sustainable Energy Development for Latin America and the Caribbean offered by the Haskayne School of Business at the Quito Ecuador campus of regional partner, the Latin American Energy Organization (OLADE). He regularly teaches in the Latin American program.     

Cost estimate of platelet transfusion in the United States for patients with chronic liver disease and associated thrombocytopenia undergoing elective procedures

Aims: This study aimed to estimate the cost of platelet transfusion in patients with chronic liver disease (CLD)-associated thrombocytopenia undergoing an elective procedure in the United States.

Materials and methods: The study was conducted in two parts: development of a conceptual framework identifying direct, indirect and intangible costs of platelet transfusion, followed by the estimation of the total cost of platelet transfusion in patients with CLD-associated thrombocytopenia before an elective procedure in the United States using the conceptual framework and cost data obtained from a literature search. The cost of the entire care required to raise a patient’s platelet count before the procedure was considered.

Results: The final conceptual framework included the costs of generating the supply of platelets, the platelet transfusion itself, adverse events associated with platelet transfusion and refractoriness to platelet transfusion. When costs were accounted for in all the framework cost categories, the total direct cost of a platelet transfusion in a patient with CLD and associated thrombocytopenia was estimated to be in the range of $5258 to $13,117 (2017?US dollars) in the United States. The largest portion of costs was incurred by the transfusion event itself ($3723 to $4436) and the cost of refractoriness ($874 to $7578), which included the opportunity cost of a delayed procedure and subsequent platelet transfusions with human leukocyte antigen-matched platelets.

Limitations and conclusions: Although we were unable to include all cost components identified in the conceptual framework in our total cost estimate, thus likely underestimating the true total cost, and despite the data gaps and challenges limiting our estimate of the full cost of a platelet transfusion in patients with CLD-associated thrombocytopenia undergoing an elective procedure in the United States, this study outlines a comprehensive conceptual framework for estimating the cost elements of a platelet transfusion in these patients.     

An empirical study of factors influencing innovation implementation in industrial sales organizations

The authors formulate and test a model of organizational factors leading to successful implementation of the telemarketing innovation. Data to test the model were collected by interviewing two key informants in each of 110 industrial salesforces. Support was found for many of the individual hypotheses in the model. Preliminary conclusions are drawn for marketing management and theory.     

Decision making on pension schemes under rational expectations

In this paper the formation of expectations during decision making processes on pension schemes is the main focus. An overlapping generations model is used where politicians control the tax-transfer system and the young determine savings. No generation of decision makers is committed to previous decisions. It appears that the outcome in the stationary state depends on the efficiency of the tax-transfer system compared with savings and on the preferences of politicians relative to young individuals with respect to the division of endowments between young-age and old-age consumption. One of the main conclusions is that if the parameters of the system are constant the stationary state enters within a finite time interval. So, if the system is initially outside the stationary state, the decision makers can calculate the path of taxes and savings towards the stationary state. This feature is also used to determine the effects of a demographic change.Comments from Dieter Bös, Fons Groot, Lex Meijdam, Willem Thorbecke, and David Wildasin are gratefully acknowledged. All remaining errors are, of course, ours.     

Extending the external validity of the FITD effect to the industrial marketplace

The foot-in-the-door (FITD) effect has been extensively researched in prosocial settings. Several researchers have advocated its use as an influence strategy in marketing settings although no empirical evidence has previously been published regarding its operation in industrial/economic settings. This study experimentally tests the effect in an actual industrial marketing setting. The organization in which the study was carried out markets telecommunications products and the study sample exposed to the influence strategies consisted of potential customers—general managers and marketing managers representing industrial firms in the wholesale trade sector.     

Negotiating a Stable Government: An Application of Bargaining Theory to a Coalition Formation Model

In this paper, we apply bargaining theory to a certain model of coalition formation. The notions of a feasible government and a stable government are central in the model considered. By a government, we mean a pair consisting of a majority coalition and a policy supported by this coalition. The aim of this paper is to establish which stable government should be created if more than one stable government exists or, in case there is no stable one, which feasible government should be formed if more than one feasible government exists. Several bargaining procedures leading to the choice of one stable (or feasible) government are proposed. We define bargaining games in which only parties belonging to at least one stable (or feasible) government bargain over the creation of a government. We consider different bargaining costs. We investigate subgame perfect equilibria of the bargaining games defined. It turns out that the prospects of a party depend on the procedure applied, and on the bargaining costs assumed. We also apply the coalition formation model to the Polish Parliament after the 2001 elections and apply the different bargaining games for the creation of a government to this example.     

Are Family Transfers Crowded Out by Public Transfers?

We give an account of an overlapping–generations experiment with multiple families in which voluntary transfers can take the form of support to the elderly or grants to children. Support to the old is a purely intergenerational (intra–family) transfer, whereas grants to children also involve an element of intra–generational (inter–family) redistribution through a compulsory pension system. Our data show that higher compulsory inter–family transfers lead subjects to place relatively more emphasis on support instead of grants: grants are crowded out, but support is not significantly affected. The efficiency of voluntary transfers increases, however. Furthermore, if subjects give transfers, they do not use tokens of direct reciprocity; evidence of indirect reciprocity in transfer behavior can only be obtained for the case where compulsory transfers are high.
JEL classification : C 91; H 55