SIRE
Not a member yet
655 research outputs found
Sort by
Short-Run Strategies For Attracting Foreign Direct Investment
Get PDFThis paper empirically investigates the effectiveness and feasibility of two FDI policies, fiscal incentives and deregulation, aimed at improving the attractiveness of a country in the short run. Using disaggregated data on sales by US MNEs’ foreign affiliates in 43 developed and developing countries over the 1982-1994 period, results show that the provision of fiscal incentives or the deregulation
of the labour market would exert a positive impact on total FDI. Given the drawbacks frequently associated with the use of incentive packages, economy-wide policies which ease firing procedures
and reduce severance payments would certainly be the best policy option. This paper also highlights
the different aggregation and omitted variable biases that have affected results of previous studies and provides some support to recent theoretical models of FDI by showing that third country effects and
spatial interdependence influence respectively the location of export-platform FDI and vertical FDI
Environmental Degradation and the Limits to LOV
Get PDFWe show how consumers’ environmental concerns may limit ‘love of variety’ (LOV) and be reflected in consumers decisions. We investigate how the impact of environmental degradation on LOV influences demand and optimal product variety, and how a pollution tax on firms might be used to improve upon the market outcome and increase welfare
Financial Distress in Chinese Industry: Microeconomic, Macroeconomic and Institutional Infuences
Get PDFWe study the impact of both microeconomic factors and the macroeconomy
on the financial distress of Chinese listed companies over a period of massive economic transition, 1995 to 2006. Based on an
economic model of financial distress under the institutional setting of state protection against exit, and using our own firm-level measure of distress, we find important impacts of firm characteristics, macroeconomic instability and institutional factors on the hazard rate of financial distress. The results are robust to unobserved heterogeneity at the firm level, as well as those shared by firms in similar macroeconomic founding conditions. Comparison with related studies for other
economies highlights important policy implications
The Impact of Higher Education Institution-Firm Knowledge Links on Firm-level Productivity in Britain
Get PDFThis paper estimates whether both sourcing knowledge from and/or cooperating on innovation with HEIs (Higher Education Institutions)1 impacts on establishment-level total factor productivity (TFP) using a dataset created by merging the UK government’s Community Innovation Survey (CIS) with the Annual Respondents Database (ARD). It also considers whether higher graduate employment (as a measure of human capital) also impacts positively on TFP at the establishment-level.
Many studies have investigated the relationship between university-firm knowledge links and innovation (see, for example, Mansfield, 1991; Becker, 2003; Thorn et al, 2007). Most of these studies find a positive impact. Fewer studies have investigated the impact of university-firm knowledge links on productivity. Belderbos et al. (2004), using the Dutch CIS, find that cooperation with universities has no statistically significant impact on the growth of labour productivity. Medda et al. (2005) find no statistically significant effect of collaborative research undertaken by Italian manufacturing firms and universities on the growth of TFP. Arvanitis et al. (2008), using Swiss data, show that university-firm knowledge and technology transfer has both a direct impact on labour productivity and an indirect impact through its positive impact on innovation. In sum, there is as yet no clear consensus as to the impact of university-firm knowledge links on productivity
A Foundation System and a State System - Private-School Implications on Welfare and Education Expenditure
Get PDFThis paper examines the effects of two different education - financing systems: a foundation system and a state system on
the level and distribution of resources devoted to education in the presence of private schools. We use political economy approach where households differ in their level of income, and the
central tax rate used to nance education is determined by a majority vote. Our analysis focuses on implications of allowing for
a private-school option. To evaluate the importance of private schools we develop a computational model and calibrate it using
USA data. The results reveal that the private school option is very important quantitatively in terms of welfare, total resources spent on education and equity
The Distributional Consequences of Supply-Side Reforms in General Equilibrium
Get PDFThis paper addresses the issue on whether tax reforms consisten with lower public debt-to-GDP in the long-run can lead to a more efficient and equitable economy. To this end we solve a heterogeneous
agent model comprised of a government, a representative capitalist
and representative skilled and unskilled workers, under both rational
expectations and adaptive learning. Our main ndings are that (i) reductions in capital taxation, while bene cial at the aggregate level, lead to increased inequality mainly due to the substitutability of un-
skilled labour and capital; (ii) a fall in taxation for skilled labour is
Pareto improving, which is largely explained by its complementarity with the other factor inputs; (iii) all agents would prefer increasing the tax rate on capital to increasing the tax rate on skilled and un-
skilled labour since it leads to relatively lower welfare losses; and (iv)
heterogeneity in initial beliefs under adaptive learning quantitatively
matters for welfare
“Policy Scepticism” and the Impact of London-based Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) on the economy of England: Accounting for Alternative Uses of Public Expenditure
Get PDFThis paper replicates the analysis of Scottish HEIs in Hermannsson et al (2010a) for the case of London-based HEIs’ impact on the English economy in order to provide a self-contained analysis that is readily accessible by those whose primary concern is with the regional impacts
of London HEIs. A “policy scepticism” has emerged that challenges the results of conventional regional HEI impact analyses. This denial of the importance of the expenditure impacts of HEIs
appears to be based on a belief in either a binding regional resource constraint or a regional public sector budget constraint. In this paper we provide a systematic critique of this policy scepticism. However, while rejecting the extreme form of policy scepticism, we argue that it is
crucial to recognise the importance of alternative uses of public expenditure, and show how conventional impact analyses can be augmented to accommodate this. While our results suggest that conventional impact studies overestimate the expenditure impacts of HEIs, they also demonstrate that the policy scepticism that treats these expenditure effects as irrelevant neglects some key aspects of HEIs, in particular their export intensity
An Inquiry Into The Theory, Causes And Consequences Of Monitoring Indicators Of Health And Safety At Work
Get PDFThis paper engages in an interdisciplinary survey of the current state of knowledge related to the theory, determinants and consequences of occupational safety and health (OSH). First, it synthesizes the available theoretical frameworks used by economists and psychologists to understand the issues related to the optimal provision of OSH in the labour market. Second, it reviews the academic literature investigating the correlates of a comprehensive set of OSH indicators, which portray the state of OSH infrastructure (social security expenditure, prevention, regulations), inputs (chemical and physical agents, ergonomics, working time, violence) and outcomes (injuries, illnesses, absenteeism, job satisfaction) within workplaces. Third, it explores the implications of the lack of OSH in terms of the economic and social costs that are entailed. Finally, the survey identifies areas of future research interests and suggests priorities for policy initiatives that can improve the health and safety of workers
Industrial Structure, Trade and Regional Economics : Market Segmentation
Get PDFWe consider a general equilibrium model a la Bhaskar (Review of Economic Studies 2002): there are complementarities across sectors, each of which comprise (many) heterogenous monopolistically competitive firms. Bhaskar's model is extended in two directions: production requires capital, and labour markets are segmented. Labour market segmentation models the difficulties of labour migrating across international barriers (in a trade context) or from a poor region to a richer one (in a regional context), whilst the assumption of a single capital market means that capital flows freely between countries or regions. The
model is solved analytically and a closed form solution is provided. Adding
labour market segmentation to Bhaskar's two-tier industrial structure allows
us to study, inter alia, the impact of competition regulations on wages and -
financial flows both in the regional and international context, and the output,
welfare and financial implications of relaxing immigration laws. The analytical
approach adopted allows us, not only to sign the effect of policies, but also to
quantify their effects. Introducing capital as a factor of production improves
the realism of the model and refi nes its empirically testable implications