the value added tax its causes and consequences almost unknown in 1960 the value added tax vat is now found in more than 130 countries raises around 20 percent of the world s tax revenue and has been the centerpiece of tax reform in many developing countries this paper explores the causes and consequences of the remarkable rise of the vat a key question is whether it has indeed proved as its proponents claim an especially effective form of taxation to address this it is first shown that a tax innovation such as the introduction of a vat reduces the marginal cost of public funds if and only if it also leads an optimizing government to increase the tax ratio this observation leads to the estimation on a panel of 143 countries for 25 years of a system of equations describing both the probability of vat adoption and the revenue impact of the vat the results point to a rich set of determinants of vat adoption this being more likely for example if a country has a program with the imf and the less open it is to international trade in the revenue equation the presence of a vat does indeed have a significant impact but also a complex one with a negative intercept effect counteracted by positive effects that are greater the higher are per capita income and more tentatively openness while the sign of the revenue impact of the vat is thus in general ambiguous most countries that have adopted a vat seem to have gained a more effective tax instrument in doing so though this is less apparent in subsaharan africa and most without it seem likely to gain from its adoption

the aging population and the size of the welfare state data for the united states and countries in western europe indicate a negative correlation between the dependency ratio and labor tax rates and the generosity of social transfers after other factors that influence the size of the welfare state are controlled for this occurs despite the increased political clout of the dependent population implied by the aging of the population this paper develops an overlapping generations model of intra and intergenerational transfers including old age social security and human capital formation that addresses this seeming puzzle we show that with democratic voting an increase in the dependency ratio can lead to lower taxes or less generous social transfers

networks of innovators a synthesis of research issues abstract this paper will first summarise some key findings of empirical research in the 1960s on the role of external sources of scientific technical and market information in successful innovation by business firms this work demonstrated unambiguously the vital importance of external information networks and of collaboration with users during the development of new products and processes moreover the dilemmas of cooperative research in competitive industries were recognised and studied long ago 35 62 76 what then is new about the present wave of interest in networks of innovators are there new forms of organisation or new technologies or new policies which justify renewed research efforts since they go beyond those developments already analysed in earlier empirical and theoretical work section 2 reviews the evidence of new developments in the 1980s in industrial networks regional networks and government sponsored innovative activities it shows that there has indeed been a major upsurge of formal and semi formal flexible networks in the 1980s including some new types of network it also shows that some older forms of research cooperation have been modified and transformed the papers at montreal largely concentrated on the role of regional supplier networks which are a good example of such new wine in old bottles this paper attempts to locate the regional network discussion within a wider context of new developments in networking section 3 discusses the causes of these new developments and whether they are likely to remain a characteristic of national and international innovation systems for a long time to come or prove to be a temporary upsurge to be overtaken later by a wave of take overs and vertical integration finally section 4 sums up some of the other key issues which require further research and debate and the implications for social science theory

the aging population and the size of the welfare state is there a puzzle abstract razin sadka and swagel razin asaf efraim sadka and phillip swagel 2002 the aging population and the size of the welfare state the journal of political economy vol 110 no 4 pp 900 918 unveil a puzzling fact the welfare state appears to be shrinking even as the dependency ratio rises while they formulate an elegant political economy model to explain the coexistence of an aging population and declining transfers the resolution of the puzzle turns out to be much simpler labor tax rates and per capita transfers are negatively correlated with the dependency ratio in advanced economies only because this measure includes children as well as retirees both labor tax rates and per capita transfers in advanced economies are in fact historically positively correlated with the ratio of retirees to the working age population and negatively correlated with the ratio of children to the working age population increasing the number of retirees shifts preferences toward higher taxes and transfers by increasing the fraction of the population that receives transfers in contrast workers with more children prefer to spend more of their lifetime income while raising dependents so they prefer smaller public pension systems these results suggest that fiscal leakage from workers to retirees is not required to explain the broad trends in the transfer policies of advanced economies

diversification strategy and choice of country diversifying acquisitions abroad by u s multinationals 1978 1980 what explains the multinational conglomerate diversified across both product and geographic boundaries from a sample of diversifying foreign acquisitions by u s firms we conclude that the choice between related and unrelated acquisitions bears little relation to the acquire s base activity in the u s but it is somewhat affected by transaction costs and the firm s previous experience in the host country the motive of risk spreading encourages unrelated overseas acquisitions

interpenetration of organization and market japan s firm and market in comparison with the u s abstract resource allocation mechanisms used in the market and within the firm are quite often a mixture of the pure market principle and the pure organization principle market principles penetrate into the firm s resource allocation and organization principles creep into the market allocation interpenetration occurs to remedy the failure of pure principles other in the market or in the organization after presenting this new perspective we analyze resource allocation mechanisms in japan and the u s one conclusion is that interpenetration patterns are rather different between the two countries due to institutional economic and societal differences we also analyze the ways in which these differences affect japanese and american corporate behavior in such areas as diversification strategy corporate financing and innovation and venture business activity

has pricing behaviour in the us automobile industry become more competitive the literature in the us is divided over whether the character of the domestic automobile industry has changed recently becoming less oligopolistic this paper investigates whether domestic industry pricing policies have changed since the oil embargo the paper finds evidence that industry pricing policy has changed from that consistent with a target rate of return pricing to one more consistent with marginal cost pricing

innovation networks and vertical integration abstract a central debate in industrial policy today is that between proponents of large vertically integrated firms on the one hand and those of networks of small specialized producers on the other this paper argues that neither institutional structure is the panacea its supporters claim the menu of institutional alternatives is in fact quite large and both firms and networks of which there are several kinds can be successful growth promoting adaptations to the competitive environment industrial structures vary in their ability to coordinate information flows necessary for innovation and to overcome power relationships adverse to innovation the relative desirability of the various structures then depends on the nature and scope of technological change in the industry and on the effects of various product life cycle patterns the principal policy conclusion of this analysis is that the government s role ought to be facilitating rather than narrow and prescriptive allowing scope for firms to develop organizational forms that are best adapted to their particular environments

the taxman tools up an event history study of the introduction of the personal income tax abstract the introduction of income taxation was a landmark in the historical development of the fiscal state of the now developed world this paper presents an event history study of the adoption of the income tax in 17 countries from western europe north america oceania and japan between 1815 and 1939 we find evidence that spending pressures reductions in tax collection costs and to a lesser extent social learning played a significant role for the adoption decision we also find evidence that the extension of the franchise at first reduced the likelihood of adoption of the income tax but eventually as universal suffrage was approached increased the likelihood

the effect of national culture on the choice of entry mode characteristics of national cultures have frequently been claimed to influence the selection of entry modes this article investigates this claim by developing a theoretical argument for why culture should influence the choice of entry two hypotheses are derived which relate culture to entry mode choice one focusing on the cultural distance between countries the other on attitudes towards uncertainty avoidance using a multinomial logit model and controlling for other effects the hypotheses are tested by analysing data on 228 entries into the united states market by acquisition wholly owned greenfield and joint venture empirical support for the effect of national culture on entry choice is found

the nature and importance of economic competence this chapter takes on three tasks 1 to survey the study of economic competence as it appears in economic literature 2 to give a meaningful and operational definition of economic competence as one of the factors contributing to macroeconomic growth and 3 to suggest a methodology pursued in greater depth elsewhere to generalize and link economic competence as defined at the micro firm individual level to macroeconomic growth through simulation on the micro based macroeconomic model of the swedish economic system moses by introducing knowledge in the micro setting of firm organizational competence we arrive at a very different interpretation measured at the macro industry level from that of standard neoclassical theory

demography and the composition of taxes evidence from international panel data abstract this paper analyzes the impact of population aging on the composition of taxes when the median voter is of working age then population aging increases the demand for expenditure rather than income taxes in order to increase the tax burden on the retired population international panel evidence supports this hypothesis and this relationship holds more firmly in stronger democracies

market power and market change in the u s automobile industry two of their number the companies difficulties are generally attributed to oil price increases economic recessions increasing government regulation and changing cost conditions relative to foreign producers less often recognized however is the crucial underlying role of monopoly power in the industry and in particular the long standing dominance of general motors the concentration of the automobile market this paper will argue has led to distortions of decision making which rendered the companies vulnerable to outside forces and ultimately induced responses that proved damaging to the entire u s industry

new ventures or acquisitions the choice of swedish multinational enterprises this study examines the factors influencing the multinational enterprises choice between the takeover of already existing firms and investments in new ventures as a means of entering a foreign market the results suggest that the degree of industrial diversification of the parent company and the host country s per capita income seems to have a positive influience on the propensity for takeovers this propensity appears to be negatively related to the rate of growth of industrial production in the industry entered further we found that the more recent the entry into a foreign market the greater the probability for choosing acquisition

the transaction costs theory of joint ventures an empirical study of japanese subsidiaries in the united states this paper offers the first large sample empirical study of the factors which influence the choice of japanese firms between full or partial ownership of their u s manufacturing subsidiaries it studies for the first time the ownership policies of investors of a single home country in a single host country thus keeping variations within home and host countries constant one methodological improvement over previous studies is the use as independent variables of the relevant characteristics of the investing firms these had been proxied in previous studies by data on u s industries entered the results suggest that the degree of ownership taken by japanese manufacturing investors in their american subsidiaries is driven by the same general transaction costs variables that determine the choices made by their u s counterparts japanese parents joint venture when they need to combine with other firms intermediate inputs which are subject to high market transaction costs an intriguing result however is the lack of significance of two variables which in the u s case strongly push towards full control of foreign subsidiaries in this study neither the japanese parent s r d nor its advertising intensities had any significant impact on their ownership policies

greenfield vs acquisition the strategy of japanese investors in the united states multinational firms can enter a foreign market by taking over existing local firms acquisitions or by setting up new ventures greenfield investments surprisingly there has been limited empirical work on this topic this paper examines the determinants of this choice by looking at japanese entries into the united states by focusing on firms of one country entering a single market we are able to separate the impact of a firm s strategy from that of the characteristics of the target industry or country this paper tests simultaneously a number of competing hypotheses the results suggest that acquisitions are used by japanese investors with weak competitive advantages while investors with strong advantages find that greenfield investments are a more efficient way to transfer these advantages to the u s acquisitions are also chosen to enter industries with either very high or very low growth rates when entry is at a scale that is large relative to the parent and when entry is into a different industry the japanese investor s previous experience of the u s market its financial situation and its status as a follower in an oligopolistic industry have no statistically significant impact on the entry mode neither do u s stock market conditions

firm ownership preferences and host government restrictions an integrated approach two approaches may explain how multinational enterprises mnes select ownership structures for subsidiaries the first argues that mnes prefer structures that minimize that transaction costs of doing business abroad the second argues that ownership structures are determined by negotiations with host governments whose outcomes depend on the bargaining power of the firm this paper presents a framework integrating these two approaches and uses statistical methods to separate their effects empirically

transaction cost economics in real time this paper attempts to place the theq of the boundaries of thejirm within the context of the passage of time more precisely it resurrects and places in a modem frame some of the insights of the chsical and marshallian theories of organization the modem reinterpretation of those theories centers around the capabilities view of the jirm taken together with governance costs the capabilities ofjirm and market determine the boundaries of the jirm in the short run ovw time capabilities change as firms and markets learn which implies a kind of information or knowledge cost the cost of trandewing the firm s capability to the market w vice versa these dynamic governance costs are the costs of persuading negotiating and coordinating with and teaching others they arise in the face of change notably txchnological and organizational innovation in fit they are the costs of not having the capabilities you need when you need them dynamic transaction costs provide an explanation for vertical integration that is arguably more general than those dominant in the literature in the face of uncertainty and divwgent views ofthe future common ownership of multiple stages of production is a supwior institutional arrangement for coordinating systemic change asset specrfity is neither necessary nor suffient for this to be true dynamic governance costs may also affit internal organization it may sometimes be costly in 3 terms of persuasion negotiation and teaching to create within the firm capabilities readily available on the market indeed in cases in which systemic coordination is not 4 the issue the market may turn out to be the superior institution of coordination in e 2 genwal the capabilities view of the jirm suggests that we look atfim2 and market as alternative and sometimes overlapping institutions of learning 1 transaction costs in the long rzln and the short 9 x classical and neoclassical perspectives

what is an attractive industry business portfolio planning techniques often suggest that firms should invest in industries with high profitability high growth or other attractive characteristics critiquing this view we suggest that the same factors which lead to high profitability in an industry may cause its inefficient participants to earn lower profits higher growth on the other hand may benefit inefficient firms while reducing the gains of efficient competitors the paper offers theory and evidence to support this view of performance dependencies for the special case of diversified firms

towards an economic theory of the multiproduct firm this paper outlines a theory of the multiproduct firm important building blocks include excess capacity and its creation market imperfections and the peculiarities of organizational knowledge including its fungible and taut character a framework is adopted in which profit seeking firms are seen to diversify in order to avoid the high transactions costs associated with using various markets to trade the services of various specialized assets neoclassical explanations of the multiproduct firm are shown to be seriously deficient

new brand positioning and pricing in an oligopolistic market the positioning and pricing of a new brand requires knowledge about the relationship of both demand and cost with potential attribute locations and prices this paper addresses this problem and illustrates it in the context of the automobile market multi attribute expected utility theory which allows for consumer uncertainty about the brands is used to model individuals behavior attribute weights are estimated from market survey data on brands attributes and preferences using linmap as an estimation procedure expected utility is then updated using the multinomial logit model and choice data to account for the observation that stated preferences do not perfectly reflect the eventual choice it is hypothesized that when faced with an actual choice price may become more important to the consumer while other attributes may become more or less important than is reflected in stated preferences the resulting estimated choice probabilities are aggregated to form demand functions facing each brand which depend on all brands prices and attribute space locations assuming there is a price equilibrium in the existing market and that firms have the same variable cost function variable costs as a function of a brand s attribute levels are estimated given the demand and cost functions facing each firm including the potential new entrant the profit maximizing positioning and pricing of a new brand is analyzed using a game theoretic approach a solution is sought under the assumption that incumbents react to entry by changing their prices possible approaches to the translation of the perceptual attribute positioning of the new brand to physical and engineering attributes are reviewed improvements and future extensions of the study are discussed