reaction or interaction spatial process identification in multi tiered government structures abstract this paper models horizontal and vertical fiscal externalities in a multi tiered structure of government and implements maximum likelihood and instrumental variables estimation techniques to identify the source of spatial dependence in english local government expenditures the results show that when vertical fiscal externalities among upper tier county authority and lower tier district authority expenditures are explicitly taken into account the estimated magnitude of inter district fiscal interactions is substantially reduced the observed positive spatial autocorrelation among district expenditures can consequently be attributed to a large extent to common reaction to county fiscal policies rather than to actual strategic interaction

performance rating and yardstick competition in social service provision abstract this paper investigates whether national evaluation of decentralised government performance tends by lessening local information spill overs to reduce the scope for local performance comparisons and consequently to lower the extent of spatial auto correlation among local government expenditures it analyses local government expenditures on personal social services in the uk before and after the introduction of a national performance assessment system sspr social services performance rating that would attribute a rating to each local authority the empirical evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that the sspr has reduced local yardstick competition

tax base effects and fiscal externalities of local capital taxation evidence from a panel of german jurisdictions abstract this paper provides empirical evidence on the tax base effects of local capital taxation using a large panel of german municipalities it tests whether both the local tax rate and the tax rate in adjacent jurisdictions affect the local tax base the results obtained from a spatial gmm approach confirm a strong negative impact of the local tax rate whereas the average tax rate of neighboring municipalities proves insignificant only if interacted with the relative population size of neighbors a significant positive impact is found indicating that externalities from taxing decisions of adjacent jurisdictions are experienced only by relatively small municipalities

regional tax competition evidence from french regions reulier e and rocaboy y regional tax competition evidence from french regions regional studies two mechanisms can lead to fiscal strategic interactions between local jurisdictions the first is due to the tax base mobility authorities use fiscal variables to attract new resources the second is related to information asymmetries between the politicians and the constituency to reduce these asymmetries voters can compare their fiscal situation with the one in neighbouring jurisdictions these two channels lead to what can be referred to as mobility led and information led tax competition this paper aims to discriminate between these two tax competition models in the case of the french regions the econometric tests suggest that when taxes are paid by voters the politicians in office seem to be involved in an information led tax competition while in the case of taxes paid by firms the mobility of the tax base seems to be the best way to explain strategic fiscal interactions reulier e et

market dynamics in the netherlands competition policy and the role of small firms a recent literature analyzing the dynamics of firms and industries suggests that the contribution of new and small firms to the dynamics of competition is significantly greater than found in a static analysis policy makers have responded by implementing a wide range of programs to reduce barriers to new firm startup at the same time a number of european countries have maintained systems of collective agreements imposing industry wide standards on the deployment and remuneration of inputs particularly labor the purpose of this paper is to examine whether the ability to deviate from the industry standards practiced by the incumbent firms promotes the viability of small and new firms we examine this using a longitudinal data base from the netherlands where a system of rigid industry wide collective agreements was abandoned in favor of greater flexibility whether or not the ability of small firms to deviate from the standards and practices of the incumbent firms in the industry promotes their viability in the dutch context is instructive to other european countries such as germany and france the latter countries have identified the startup of new firms as a central policy goal but have maintained systems of industry wide collective agreements the important finding emerging from this paper is that wage flexibility promotes the viability of small firms and thus can be considered to be an instrument of competition policy in a dynamic context

marshall s versus jacobs externalities in firm innovation performance the case of french industry galliano d magrini m b and triboulet p marshall s versus jacobs externalities in firm innovation performance the case of french industry regional studies this paper analyses the influence of different types of spatial externalities related to the location of firms on their innovation performance and how those externalities combine in the territories with regard to the marshall jacobs dichotomy the originality of this study also lies in the consideration of a larger definition of the firm one that takes into account the location of all its units based on a dataset of french industrial firms and specific indicators to evaluate the specialization and or diversification of the employment zones the impacts of the spatial profile of the firm on its innovation performance are tested

nash equilibria in models of fiscal competition abstract this paper analyzes nash equilibria in a simple model of an economy with jurisdictions engaging in fiscal competition small number nash equilibria in which tax rates are the strategic variables are shown not to coincide with nash equilibria in which public expenditure levels are the strategic variables

technology agglomeration and regional competition for investment competition for firms by region has a long standing history and the academic literature has debated whether such competition is efficient we develop a model that explores technology development by firms facing regional competition for their invest ment and examine the endogenous determination of region policy firm technology and agglomeration externalities we find a new source of inefficiency regional competition leads firms to inefficiently distort their development and selection of production tech nology to improve their standing in the regional competition for their investment we show that these inefficient firm decisions on technology and location can also weaken agglomeration externalities jel classification h71 l2

geography industrial organization and agglomeration this paper makes two contributions to the empirical literature on agglomeration economies first the paper uses a unique and rich database in conjunction with mapping software to measure the geographic extent of agglomerative externalities previous papers have been forced to assume that agglomeration economies are club goods that operate at a metropolitan scale second the paper tests for the existence of organizational agglomeration economies of the kind studied qualitatively by saxenian 1994 this is a potentially important source of increasing returns that previous empirical work has not considered results indicate that localization economies attenuate rapidly and that industrial organization affects the benefits of agglomeration

from theory to practice canadian economists contributions to public finance we survey canadian economists contributions to the field of public finance from the mid 1980s to 2016 we highlight the development and extension of the models and tools of public economics and the empirical studies that have deepened our understanding of the efficiency and distributional issues over a wide range of public finance issues we also highlight contributions to the development of policies through commissioned reports and the important role that canadian institutions the canadian tax foundation the think tanks and the federal and provincial departments of finance have played in shaping tax and fiscal policies de la theorie a la pratique contributions des economistes canadiens a la finance publique on examine les contributions des economistes canadiens au domaine de la finance publique du milieu des annees 1980 a 2016 on souligne le developpement et l extension des modeles et des outils d economie publique et les etudes empiriques qui ont aide a approfondir notre comprehension des enjeux d efficacite et de distribution dans un vaste eventail de questions de finance publique on souligne aussi les contributions des rapports commandites au developpement de politiques publiques ainsi que le role important d institutions canadiennes l association canadienne d etudes fiscales les groupes d experts ainsi que les ministeres des finances du gouvernement federal et des gouvernements provinciaux dans le design des politiques fiscales

an empirical analysis of intergovernmental tax interaction the case of business income taxes in canada both federal and provincial governments in canada levy corporate taxes on busi nesses in their jurisdictions which potentially gives rise to horizontal and vertical tax exter nalities within the federation using a simple model of interdependent tax choices we estimate tax setting functions for the federal government ontario quebec and an aggregate of the remaining eight provinces we find evidence of significant vertical and horizontal tax inter actions provincial tax rates respond negatively to the federal tax rate while at least some provinces increase their tax rates in response to increases in the tax rates of other provinces

the roles of risk and ambiguity in technology adoption we study the impacts of risk and ambiguity aversion on the adoption of new technologies specifically genetically modified gm corn and soy seeds we conduct experiments measuring risk and ambiguity aversion with midwestern grain farmers risk aversion has only a small impact on the timing of adoption of gm soy while ambiguity aversion has a large impact speeding up farmer adoption of gm corn we hypothesize that this unusual finding is due to the fact that gm corn often contains an insect resistance trait which reduces the ambiguity of pest damages for adopters gm soy never contains this insect resistance trait this highlights the importance of distinguishing between risk and ambiguity when studying the effects of aversion to uncertainty on adoption of new technologies

tax competition nash equilibria and residential mobility abstract wildasin journal of public economics 35 241 249 1988 examines and compares the equilibrium policies of governments when they compete in the tax rate and when they compete in the government service he finds that the two equilibrium outcomes differ with governments having greater government expenditures when they compete in taxes wildasin however assumes that residents are immobile here i show that while these two equilibria will still generally differ when residents are mobile wildasin s conclusion that competition in the tax rate results in higher government service levels does not hold when the demand for housing is elastic and government policies are chosen to maximize land rent when governments maximize the utility of landowning residents the results are reversed competition in the tax rate results in higher government service levels when the demand for housing is elastic and lower service levels when the demand is inelastic

institutional ownership of stock and dimensions of corporate social performance an empirical examination collectively institutions own an increasing proportion of outstanding corporate equities as an emergent force in shaping corporate america the linkages between institutional ownership and corporate social performance csp require empirical examination not only do corporate policy makers need to know those areas where social performance may lure or inhibit capital infusions lawmakers also need a better understanding of the social forces guiding corporate policy as anticipated this study found a positive relationship between the amount of institutional ownership of corporate stock and a company s social responsiveness as measured by the representation of women on its board of directors however no statistically significant relationship with social responsibility as measured by charitable giving was found the exemplar of social issues management compliance with the sullivan principles showed an unexpected negative relationship with the level of institutional ownership

the effects of shifts in a return distribution on optimal portfolios when the distribution of the returns of a risky asset undergoes a stochastically dominating shift a risk averse investor may not necessarily increase the investment in that asset this paper provides restrictions on the investor s utility function that are necessary and sufficient for a dominating shift to bring about no decrease in the investment in the respective asset if there are two risky assets in the portfolio these conditions are also necessary if there are n 2 assets and are necessary and sufficient if the utility function exhibits constant absolute risk aversion copyright 1990 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

insurance moral hazard and chemical use in agriculture this paper examines how crop insurance affects corn farmers fertilizer and pesticide use in the u s midwest crop insurance might be expected to affect chemical use because of moral hazard insured farmers may undertake riskier production than do uninsured farmers results suggest that insurance exerts considerable influence on corn farmers chemical use decisions those purchasing insurance applied significantly more nitrogen per acre 19 spent more on pesticides 21 and treated more acreage with both herbicides and insecticides 7 and 63 than did those not purchasing insurance these results suggest that both fertilizer and pesticides may be risk increasing inputs

how elastic are national corporate income tax bases in oecd countries the role of domestic and foreign tax rates abstract to what extent do reductions in corporate income tax cit rates attract foreign tax bases what are the revenue implications of a unilateral tax reduction when tax bases are internationally mobile these questions are explored using annual data from 17 oecd countries spanning the period 1982 to 2005 controlling for fixed country effects year effects and country time trends and subjecting our results to an extensive robustness analysis we find i a country s aggregate reported corporate profits are negatively and significantly affected by cit rate reductions in neighbouring countries ii a unilateral reduction in the domestic cit rate results in lower domestic cit revenues

a spatial analysis of provincial corporate income tax responses evidence from canada using a model of interdependent tax choices and accounting for equalization entitlements and general transfers this paper estimates making use of a spatial econometric framework corporate income tax setting functions for all canadian provincial governments the results show that there is a statistically significant positive fiscal interaction among a subset of provinces and between all provinces and the federal government provincial corporate income taxes are also found to be negatively related to equalization entitlements general federal transfers and the federal corporate income tax a robustness check on the fiscal relationship between ontario and quebec verifies the existence of significant bi directional fiscal interdependencies the paper also introduces u s state corporate income taxes as covariates and examines their interaction with canadian provinces a l aide d un modele de choix fiscaux interdependants et en tenant compte des paiements de perequation et des transferts generaux ce texte calibre a l aide d un cadre econometrique spatial les fonctions de definition de fiscalite des revenus de societes de tous les gouvernements provinciaux canadiens les resultats montrent qu il y a un effet d interaction positif significatif entre un sous ensemble de provinces et entre les provinces dans leur ensemble et le gouvernement federal les impots sur le revenu des societes des provinces sont co relies negativement avec les paiements de perequation les transferts generaux et l impot federal sur le revenu des societes des tests de robustesse montrent qu il y a relation d interdependance fiscale bidirectionnelle significative entre le quebec et l ontario le memoire introduit les impots sur le revenu des societes aux etats unis comme co variables et examine leur interaction avec ce qui se passe dans les provinces canadiennes

where does an industry locate abstract this paper presents an econometric model of industrial location and estimates the model for two industries in brazil based on a comprehensive data set the model predicts which cities will or will not have the industry and for these cities with the industry what the scale of operation will be the parameters estimated in a full information context represent the technology of production supply of entrepreneurs and equilibrating error in markets the results are strong and very suggestive and the explanatory power of the model is relatively high the results are used to simulate the impact of industry subsidies on locational patterns

a nonparametric approach to identifying latent relationships in hierarchical models this paper provides a method for nonparametrically modeling the relationship between consumer preference for product features such as reliability or durability and covariates that describe consumers and how they use the product this relationship is of interest to firms designing and delivering products to a market because the extent to which consumers are sensitive to particular features determines the potential profitability of product offerings and affects decisions relating to appropriate distribution outlets and advertising strategies the successful identification of these relationships also aids in efficiently targeting marketing activities to specific segments of the consumer population the relationship between consumer preference for product features and observable covariates is important but is typically unknown in addition these relationships are often deeply embedded in a model hierarchy and are not observed directly for example in models of household choice the observed outcomes are multinomial with probabilities driven by latent utilities or values that consumers place on the choice alternatives these utilities are in turn a function of characteristics such as price and product features which are differentially valued of primary interest is the relationship between consumer sensitivity to product characteristics and readily observed covariates such as household demographics or aspects of product usage because the relationships of interest are not directly observed it is difficult to draw inferences about them without formal statistical models this paper presents a three level hierarchical bayes model for modeling binary consumer preferences as a function of observable covariates the hierarchical model nonparametrically estimates the relationships between consumer preferences for product features and the covariates without assuming a specific functional form a nonparametric model is particularly useful in the exploratory analysis of consumer data in which the primary purpose of the analysis is to generate further questions rather than provide specific answers to well posed questions this type of analysis is frequently encountered in marketing where a series of studies are commissioned to better understand the nature of demand the first level of the hierarchy in the bayesian model relates the binary consumer choice to the sensitivities of the consumer to product attributes such as brand name price reliability and durability the second level of the hierarchy models the heterogeneity across consumers using functions that relate attribute sensitivities to observable covariates this level of the hierarchy also allows each respondent to have unique demand coefficients by introducing random effect components the third level of the hierarchy specifies a smoothness prior for each of the unknown functions used in the second level the approach is flexible and works well both when the unknown function can be closely approximated by a linear function and when it cannot be a bayesian model selection technique is used to determine which functions can be modeled using a linear function and which ones should be modeled nonparametrically to provide the necessary flexibility to estimate the function accurately the proposed methodology is illustrated using data from a survey of consumer preferences for features of marine outboard engines that was collected as part of a consulting project our analysis focuses on measuring consumer preferences for engine features and their relationships to two variables related to boat length and engine size consumer preferences for engine features were obtained through a national survey conducted over the telephone preferences were elicited by means of a pairwise evaluation in which respondents chose between two engines that were identical in every respect except for two engine features the methodology can be modified to allow for more complex comparisons such as conjoint data collected in full profiles the application of a bayesian model selection procedure indicates that 4 of the 28 covariate relationships in the model are nonlinear while the other 24 are linear the preferences associated with these four functions are involved in 56 of the pairwise comparisons in the study therefore in practice if the nonlinear functions are not properly estimated there is the potential to draw misleading inferences regarding 56 of the pairwise choices firms can use the estimates of the functions relating preferences to covariates in a number of ways first they can use the covariates to determine the total number of consumers who have high demand for a particular product feature and then they can target communication efforts to those individuals alternatively the empirical results can be used as a basis of subsequent analysis to obtain a more complete characterization of a market segment

budget spillovers and fiscal policy interdependence evidence from the states abstract this paper formalizes and tests the notion that states expenditures depend on the spending of similarly situated states we find that even after allowing for fixed state effects year effects and common random shocks among neighbors a state government s level of per capita expenditure is positively and significantly affected by the expenditure levels of its neighbors ceteris paribus a one dollar increase in a state s neighbors expenditures increases its own expenditure by over 70 cents

the impressive contribution of canadian economists to fiscal federalism theory and policy the study of fiscal federalism has been central to the research of canadian economists since the rowell sirois report to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the canadian economics association it is fitting to take stock of their contributions we focus on the period since 1982 and emphasize the main scholarly publications of an inclusive array of canadian economists and economists in canadian universities our attention is devoted to applications in the context of federal and provincial governments setting aside related issues in municipal government finance we briefly discuss instances where the fiscal federalism literature has informed policy debates including through policy research institutes government commissions and international organizations la contribution impressionnante des economistes canadiens a la theorie et a la politique du federalisme fiscal l etude du federalisme fiscal a ete un element central de la recherche des economistes canadiens depuis la commission rowell sirois au moment de celebrer le 50eme anniversaire de la fondation de l association canadienne d economique le moment est approprie pour prendre la mesure de leurs contributions on se concentre sur la periode apres 1982 et on souligne les principales publications savantes d un ensemble inclusif d economistes canadiens et d economistes dans les universites canadiennes une attention particuliere est portee aux applications dans le contexte federal et provincial mettant de cote les enjeux relies a la finance municipale on discute brievement des instances ou la litterature sur le federalisme fiscal a eclaire les debats de politiques publiques y compris a travers les instituts de recherche sur les politiques publiques les commissions gouvernementales et les organisations internationales

the determinants of municipal tax rates in british columbia in this paper we study the regional pattern of municipal business property tax rates in the province of british columbia reduced form tax setting equations produce some evidence that municipal governments respond to tax changes in neighbouring jurisdictions a joint investigation of the determinants of tax base and municipal taxation decisions however reveals that it is difficult to interpret this response as arising primarily out of competition over tax base there is also some evidence that municipal tax rates are sensitive to taxes set on the same base by super municipal bodies jel classification c33 h71 les determinants des taux d imposition municipale en colombie britannique dans ce memoire les auteurs etudient le pattern regional des taux d imposition municipale sur la propriete fonciere commerciale dans la province de la colombie britannique on montre a l aide d un modele en forme reduite d equations de definition des taux d imposition que les gouvernements municipaux reagissent aux changements dans les taux d imposition dans leur voisinage cependant un examen conjoint des determinants de la base d imposition et des decisions municipales montre qu il est difficile d interpreter cette reaction comme emanant d une concurrence fiscale on montre aussi que les taux d imposition municipale sont sensibles aux niveaux de fiscalite imposes sur la meme base par les autorites supra municipales

risk and the value of bt corn a conceptual model is developed to evaluate the effect of bt corn on risk results highlight the importance of distinguishing between marginal and aggregate risk effects and demonstrate that the effect of bt corn on risk depends crucially on the price paid for the technology empirical results show that depending on the price bt corn can be marginally risk increasing or decreasing and can either increase or decrease corn acreage also depending on the price bt corn can provide a risk benefit to farmers even when bt corn is risk increasing bt corn is genetically engineered to produce a protein found in the soil bacterium bacillus thuringiensis bt the protein is toxic to lepidopterous insects such as the european

the costs and benefits of refuge requirements the case of bt cotton abstract refuge requirements have been the primary regulatory tool to delay pest resistance to bt crops this paper presents a simple method to estimate the annual cost of refuges to producers applying it to bt cotton it also examines broader welfare impacts estimating how bt cotton acreage restrictions affect producer surplus consumer surplus seed supplier profits and commodity program outlays the implications of grower adoption behavior partial adoption aggregate adoption and refuge choice for regulatory costs are examined empirical examples illustrate how providing multiple refuge options significantly reduces regulatory costs

coveting thy neighbor s manufacturing the dilemma of state income apportionment abstract this paper investigates the economic impact of the apportionment formulae used to divide corporate income taxes among the states most apportionment formulae by including payroll turn the state corporate income tax at least partially into a payroll tax using panel data from 1978 1994 the results show that this distortion has an important effect on state level employment for the average state reducing the payroll weight from one third to one quarter increases manufacturing employment around 1 1 concentrated in durable goods manufacturing and with larger effects in the long run the results also suggest that apportionment changes have important negative externalities on other states on average the aggregate effects of apportionment formula changes are close to zero

the spillover effects of united states foreign trade zones abstractthis article empirically tests the geographic and economic spillover effects of foreign trade zones ftzs in the united states by utilizing propensity score matching and the geographic rules of the programme while these ftz sites are designed to support manufacturing we find that zip codes that receive ftz sites experience growth in new and existing non manufacturing establishments our results also show that ftzs spillover into nearby zip codes we find that zip codes that border ftz zip codes also experience positive effects on non manufacturing establishments and these spillovers are strongest within a 5 mile radius of an ftz

horizontal and vertical indirect tax competition theory and some evidence from the usa this paper provides a simple theoretical framework for analysing simultaneous vertical and horizontal competition in excise taxes and estimates equations informed by the theory on a panel of us state and federal excise taxes on cigarettes and gasoline we also examine the role played by smuggling the results are generally consistent with the theory when the characteristics of the markets for the goods are taken into account for neither good do federal excise taxes affect state taxes taxes in neighbouring states have a significant and large effect in the case of cigarettes and a much weaker effect in the case of gasoline we also find that in the setting of cigarette taxes concerns about cross border shopping play a more important role than concerns about smuggling

productivity and city size a critique of the evidence a critique of two leading articles in the productivity and city size literature results in revised estimates of the productivity advantages of large cities in particular extant estimates of the elasticity of productivity with city size are revised downward by over 100 percent for the manufacturing sector and about 25 percent for the entire urban economy after revision productivity advantages of larger cities are found to be much larger for the nonmanufacturing sector than for the manufacturing sector hence revitalization policies for large cities should be focused on nonmanufacturing sectors

technological specialization and variety in urban invention o huallachain b and lee d s technological specialization and variety in urban invention regional studies urban economic theory distinguishes between knowledge spillovers that occur within specializations and those that cross technologies empirical analysis has sought to gauge their relative strength but the results are inconclusive metropolitan specialization and variety at different aggregation levels of a us patent classification system are assessed using theil s relative entropy index the results show that specialization and variety are not competing features of urban technological structure cities can have both the invention rate positively associates with specialization in diverse technologies the cross fertilization of ideas among skilled professionals with different expertise and the interaction between specialists of narrow fields of knowledge are both important in technological advance the most inventive cities have deep specializations in different technologies the results also sho

expenditure spillovers and fiscal interactions empirical evidence from local governments in spain abstract the paper presents a framework for measuring spillovers resulting from local expenditure policies we identify and test for two different types of expenditure spillovers i benefit spillovers arising from the provision of local public goods and ii crowding spillovers arising from the crowding of facilities by residents in neighboring jurisdictions benefit spillovers are accounted for by assuming that the representative resident enjoys the consumption of a local public good in both his own community and in those surrounding it crowding spillovers are included by considering that a locality s consumption level is influenced by the population living in the surrounding localities we estimate a reaction function with interactions between local governments occurring not only between expenditure levels but also between neighbors populations and expenditures the equation is estimated using data on more than 2500 spanish local governments for the year 1999 the results show that both types of spillovers are relevant

spatial fiscal interactions among french municipalities within inter municipal groups based on a unique data set of french municipalities and a large number of budgetary variables we estimate the extent of spatial fiscal interaction among the 33 484 french municipalities in 2008 by accounting for inter municipal cooperation using a spatial autoregressive model with inter municipal group fixed effects we show that spatial interactions among french municipalities are inflated by correlated effects that affect similarly municipalities that cooperate together removing these confounding effects leads to considerably smaller positive spatial interactions for tax decisions and even negative ones for capital expenditures in addition we observe a clear distinction between complementary choices on current budget items and substitutable choices on capital budget items

taxes and agglomeration economies how are they related to nonprofit firm location author affiliation teresa d harrison department of economics drexel university 3141 chestnut street philadelphia pa 19104 usa tharrison drexel edu1 introductionnonprofits are an ever increasing component of the u s economy from 1997 2001 employment growth in the nonprofit sector averaged 2 5 outpacing both the business 1 8 and the government sectors 1 6 moore 2004 much of this growth stems from new nonprofits yet few studies have investigated possible determinants of nonprofit entry and location decisions most of these studies focus on demand side factors wolch and geiger 1983 downes and greenstein 1996 bielefeld murdoch and waddell 1997 for example downes and greenstein 1996 focus on demographic and religious characteristics of the surrounding community and its relation to private school location in this paper i use firm level data and focus on potentially important supply side variables tax rates and agglomeration economies most nonprofits are exempt from corporate sales and property taxes hansmann 1987 and gulley and santerre 1993 find evidence that higher corporate property and sales taxes are positively related to nonprofit market share however market share measures obfuscate the dynamics of the industry in terms of entry and exit rates if market share for nonprofits increases in response to higher tax rates this could be because new nonprofits are entering or because for profits are leaving the industry identifying these two cases is impossible with market share data using nonprofit tax return data i examine the relation between these tax exemptions and state county location decisions of new nonprofits to my knowledge this is the first paper to study these interactions at the individual firm level nonprofits also receive tax favored status due to the individual tax deduction on charitable contributions gentry and penrod 1998 employees of and donors to the nonprofits will be affected by the individual tax rates this in turn alters the costs to the nonprofit of location in a high or low tax area unlike previous studies i therefore investigate the relation between individual marginal tax rates and nonprofit location another potential supply side determinant of firm location decisions is the existing firm concentration in the area the potential economies of scale generated by proximity to other firms have been extensively examined in for profit industries 1 previous studies have generally found a positive relation between agglomeration and location carlton 1983 bartik 1985 woodward 1992 gius and frese 2002 rosenthal and strange 2003 to my knowledge bielefeld et al 2004 is the only study that examines nonprofit agglomeration finding evidence of agglomeration in dallas texas this warrants additional examination because nonprofit output is generally service driven and less mobile thus agglomeration implies greater direct competition making market saturation a larger issue in the nonprofit market using a nationwide dataset i examine how location and existing firm concentration are related and explore the potential presence of market saturation i also investigate possible differences between inter and intra industry agglomeration my results provide new insight into nonprofit firm behavior in most cases higher tax rates are associated with new firm location but the results for corporate and property taxes vary across the sample years i find that individual tax rates are an important consideration for nonprofits and are positively correlated to location my analysis also contributes to the literature by examining how the sensitivity to tax rates varies according to the sources of revenues for the institution firms that depend highly on individual donations are more likely to locate in high individual tax states while nonprofits with large mission related revenues are more sensitive to the property tax rate

strategic fiscal interaction among oecd countries this paper investigates whether oecd countries compete with each other for mobile factors by using various fiscal tax spending policy instruments we use a panel dataset of 20 oecd countries over the 1982 2000 period results reveal evidence that international capital inflows fdi are affected by fiscal policy at home and abroad also there is evidence that domestic capital tax rates react i positively to changes in capital tax rates in neighboring countries and ii negatively to changes in public investment spending in neighboring countries in contrast strategic interdependence over public investment spending decisions is not established

budgetary and producer welfare effects of revenue insurance legislation passed in 1996 changed the way the u s federal government acts to reduce risks faced by u s crop products the authors compare the new alternative forms of revenue insurance to the 1990 deficiency payment program and to a no program alternative they estimate the effects of the alternative polices on the acreage allocations of a representative farm on the expected government cost and on producer welfare simulation results indicate that a revenue insurance scheme that guarantees 75 percent of expected revenue to risk averse produced could provide approximately the same level of benefits as the 1990 program at as little as one fourth the cost

the influence of taxes on migration evidence from switzerland empirical studies on the impact of taxation on migration have been limited by a lack of comparable data in an international context and a lack of variation in tax burdens within countries a notable exception to the latter is switzerland prior empirical studies on tax competition in switzerland have had to rely on aggregated data in general these studies have been supportive of the notion of tax competition i e high earners tend to relocate to low tax regions the authors use an alternative panel approach based on micro data from the first three waves of the newly established swiss household panel despite active community tax policies aimed at attracting new residents and a significant increase in tax burden dispersion among communities in the past decade no tax induced migration is observed migration decisions are found to be strongly influenced by accommodation related factors that point to important housing market effects

asymmetric tax competition abstract the paper analyzes nash equilibrium when two jurisdictions set tax rates on a tax base which is mobile between them population differences imply tax differences the smaller jurisdiction levies a lower tax rate in equilibrium and its residents are better off than those in the larger jurisdiction the nash equilibrium is inefficient if the two jurisdictions merged the resulting allocation would be efficient however if differences in population are great enough residents of the small jurisdiction would be made worse off by such a merger

nonparametric regression techniques in economics this introduction to nonparametric regression emphasizes techniques that might be most accessible and useful to the applied economist the paper begins with a brief overview of the class of models under study and central theoretical issues such as the curse of dimensionality the bias variance trade off and rates of convergence the paper then focuses on kernel and nonparametric least squares estimation of the nonparametric regression model and optimal differencing estimation of the partial linear model constrained estimation and hypothesis testing is also discussed empirical examples include returns to scale in electricity distribution and hedonic pricing of housing attributes

alleged tax competition the mysterious death of bequest taxes in switzerland abstract interjurisdictional competition over mobile tax bases is an easily understood mechanism but actual tax base elasticities are difficult to estimate political pressure for reducing tax rates could therefore be based on erroneous estimates of the mobility of tax bases we show that tax competition provided the most prominent argument in the policy debates leading to a succession of reforms of bequest taxation by swiss cantons yet canton level panel data spanning multiple bequest tax reforms over a 36 year period suggest the relevant tax base high income retirees to be relatively inelastic with respect to tax rates the alleged pressures of tax competition did not seem in reality to exist

pests and pesticides risk and risk aversion abstract theoretical and applied literature on risk in decision making for agricultural pest control is reviewed risk can affect pesticide decision making either because of risk aversion or because of its influence on expected profit it is concluded that risk does not necessarily lead to increased pesticide use by individual farmers uncertainty about some variables such as pest density and pest mortality does lead to higher optimal pesticide use under risk aversion however uncertainty about other important variables such as output price and yield leads to lower optimal levels of pesticide use neglect of these variables in most studies has led to the false assumption that pesticides are always risk reducing inputs furthermore there is evidence that in general the pesticide dosage which maximises expected profit is lower under risk than under certainty depending on the balance of forces to increase and decrease pesticide use under risk in many circumstances the net effect of risk on optimal decision making for pest control may be minimal the effect on risk of information about pest density and other variables as in integrated pest management programmes is discussed evidence on this issue is mixed a range of analytical techniques for analysing risk in pest control is reviewed throughout the paper gaps in the existing literature are identified

no place like home relocation capabilities and firm survival in the german machine tool industry after world war ii we explore the extent to which organizational capabilities are location specific by studying the location choices and longevity of east german machine tool producers that relocated to west germany after world war ii relocating firms were similar in performance to experienced west german incumbents they outperformed new entrants without prewar industry experience this suggests they were able to build on capabilities acquired before the war even though relocating firms tended lo locate in industry agglomerations and in urbanized regions we find no evidence suggesting that firm performance benefited from agglomeration economies copyright 2011 the author 2010 published by oxford university press on behalf of associazione icc all rights reserved oxford university press

testing for strategic interaction among local governments the case of growth controls this paper helps to fill a gap in the public economics literature by providing empirical evidence on strategic interaction among local governments using the methodology of case et al journal of public economics 52 285 307 1993 the paper focuses on the adoption of growth control measures by cities in california and looks for evidence of policy interdependence in these choices the data are drawn from an elaborate survey of growth control practices in california cities conducted by glickfeld and levine regional growth local reaction lincoln institute of land policy cambridge ma 1992 the survey results are used to compute an index of the stringency of growth controls in each city which serves as the dependent variable for the study

do countries compete over corporate tax rates this paper tests whether oecd countries compete with each other over corporate taxes in order to attract investment we develop two models with firm mobility countries compete only over the statutory tax rate or the effective average tax rate while with capital mobility countries compete only over the effective marginal tax rate we estimate the parameters of reaction functions using data from 21 countries between 1983 99 we find evidence that countries compete over all three measures but particularly over the statutory tax rate and the effective average tax rate this is consistent with a belief amongst governments that location choices by multinational firms are discrete we also find evidence of concave reaction functions consistent with the model outlined in the paper

in search of yardstick competition a spatial analysis of italian municipality property tax setting this paper uses italian local government data to test for fiscal interaction arising from yardstick competition to discriminate yardstick competition from competing theories of strategic interaction we account for the incentives and constraints generated by the electoral system in particular for the presence of term limits and the size of the majorities supporting the mayors estimation of a local property tax setting equation uncovers positive spatial auto correlation in local tax rates of jurisdictions where the mayors run for re election in uncertain contests while interaction is absent where either mayors face a term limit or are backed by large majorities

local revenue hills evidence from four u s cities we provide estimates of the effects and long run elasticities of the tax base with respect to tax rates for four large u s cities houston property taxation minneapolis property taxation new york city property general sales and income taxation and philadelphia property gross receipts and wage taxation results suggest that three of our cities are near the peaks of their revenue hills minneapolis is the exception a significant negative effect of a balanced budget increase in city property tax rates on the city property base is interpreted as a capitalization effect and suggests that marginal increases in city spending do not provide positive net benefits to property owners estimates of the effects of taxes on city employment levels for new york city and philadelphia the two cities for which employment series are available show the local income and wage tax rates have significant negative effects on city employment levels cuts in these tax rates are likely to be an economically cost effe

tax and the city a theory of local tax competition abstract in this paper we propose a novel theoretical model of tax competition at the local level large jurisdictions cities compete both locally with smaller neighbouring communities and interregionally with more distant cities while small jurisdictions hinterlands compete only with other jurisdictions in their neighbourhood the model structure is motivated by recent empirical findings as well as survey results among german mayors the perceived intensity of competition for firms varies considerably between jurisdictions and can mainly be explained by the size and location of the jurisdiction our model predicts contrary to earlier findings for competition between countries or regions that capital taxes of large jurisdictions fall more strongly with increasing interregional competition and may eventually lead to smaller taxes than in small jurisdictions hinterlands are therefore less affected from globalisation than cities we contrast our results with a standard tax competition model in which all jurisdictions compete with all other jurisdictions

the effects of adaptation measures on hurricane induced property losses which fema investments have the highest returns abstract this paper evaluates the relative effectiveness of fema expenditures on hurricane induced property losses we find that spending on fema ex ante mitigation and planning projects leads to greater reductions in property losses than spending on ex post adaptation programs specifically a one percent increase in annual spending on ex ante risk reduction and warning projects reduces damages by 0 21 percent while a one percent increase in ex post recovery and clean up spending reduces damages by 0 12 although both types of program spending are effective we find the marginal return from spending on programs that target long term mitigation and risk management to be almost twice that of spending on ex post recovery programs with the predicted increases in the frequency and severity of north atlantic hurricanes in the future our findings suggest there are important potential gains that could be realized from the further diversification of fema spending across project categories

tax differentials in intraregional firm location evidence from new manufacturing establishments in spanish municipalities jofre monseny j and sole olle a tax differentials in intraregional firm location evidence from new manufacturing establishments in spanish municipalities regional studies this paper analyses empirically how differences in local taxes affect the intraregional location of new manufacturing plants these effects are examined within the random profit maximization framework it looks at the location decision of more than 10 000 manufacturing establishments locating between 1996 and 2003 across more than 400 municipalities in catalonia a spanish region it is found that local taxes on business and property deter new manufacturing establishments it is necessary to restrict the choice set to the local labour market and above all to control for agglomeration economies to identify the effects of taxes on the location of new establishments jofre monseny j et sole olle a les ecarts dans les taux d imposition et la localisation intra regionale des entreprises des preuves provenant des nouveaux etablisseme

altered states taxes and the location of foreign direct investment in america this paper compares the distribution between u s states of investment from countries that grant foreign tax credits with investment from all other countries the ability to apply foreign tax credits against home country tax liabilities reduces an investor s incentive to avoid high tax foreign locations state corporate tax rate differences of 1 percent are associated with differences of 9 11 percent between the investment shares of foreign tax credit investors and the investment shares of all others suggesting that state taxes significantly influence the pattern of foreign direct investment in the united states copyright 1996 by american economic association

moral and conceptual issues in investment and finance an overview as director of the second east carolina university conference in applied philosophy it is my pleasure to introduce this fine collection of papers on moral and conceptual issues in investment and finance the essays address a wide range of topics south african disinvestment the professional responsibil ities of accountants decision theoretic problems for fiduciaries and the rights of employees in corporate takeovers to cite just a few examples consequently any attempt to somehow summarize or tie together all this material would be either extremely super ficial or far exceed the available space instead in what follows i try to supplement the papers first by offering some general observations about our con ference topic and secondly by identifying what seem to me to be some of the fertile areas for further research the title of our conference was meant to em phasize two points first although a number of philosophers and business scholars now study a field commonly called business ethics a more natural and general description of their interests might be philosophical issues in business the study of the particularly abstract foundational or normative aspects of business thus while topics such as the rights of employees or the social obligations of corporations are of course part of the philosophical study of business so are non normative or less explicitly normative questions such as whether and in what sense corporations are persons the extent to

strategic fiscal interaction across borders evidence from french and german local governments along the rhine valley abstract this article contributes to the literature on local tax interactions its novelty lies in its focus on the interactions of local governments across national borders we use panel data for the french and german municipalities in the rhine valley for the period 2000 2007 the local governments of each country influence firms overall tax burdens but the tax instruments available at the local level differ we estimate panel models that distinguish between the effects of competing municipalities belonging to the same country and belonging to the other country our empirical model shows that local jurisdictions along borders choose their business tax rates based on those of their domestic neighbors and that foreign fiscal policy does not have an impact on the local domestic tax setting behavior in these contexts

do countries compensate firms for international wage differentials we address the role of labor cost differentials for national tax policies modeling a tax competition race between two countries competing for a population of mobile firms we show that in equilibrium the high wage country charges a lower tax than the low wage country moreover under tax competition the high wage country attracts more firms than in a setting without taxation exploiting exogenous variation in labor cost differentials induced by the breakdown of communism in eastern europe we find that tax policies are in line with the model prediction our most conservative estimates suggest that a one dollar increase in the compensation cost differential in prices as of 2000 triggers a cut of the statutory corporate income tax rate by about one percentage point

public spending interactions and local politics empirical evidence from french municipalities this paper aims at testing whether there exist spending interactions between french municipalities by estimating a dynamic panel data model our results suggest that there are some interactions between neighbouring municipalities as regards primary and investment expenditures a positive relationship between municipalities wage bill and un employment rates is likely to stress a rise of temporary employment in those municipalities that suffer from social troubles further the estimation results show that these interdepen dences also exist between cities whose mayors have the same partisan affiliation finally our results confirm the opportunistic behaviour of local governments which increase all categories of public spending in pre electoral periods

the economic performance of cities a markov switching approach abstract this paper examines the determinants of employment growth in metro areas to obtain growth rates we use a markov switching model that separates a city s growth path into two distinct phases high and low each with its own growth rate the simple average growth rate over some period is therefore the weighted average of the high phase and low phase growth rates with the weight being the frequency of the two phases we estimate the effects of a variety of factors separately for the high phase and low phase growth rates growth in the high phase is related to both human capital and industry mix while growth in the low phase is related to industry mix only specifically the relative importance of manufacturing overall our results strongly reject the notion that city level characteristics influence employment growth equally across the phases of the business cycle

incumbent behavior vote seeking tax setting and yardstick competition this paper develops a model of the political economy of tax setting in a multijurisdictional world where voters choices and incumbent behavior are determined simultaneously voters are assumed to make comparisons between jurisdictions to overcome political agency problems this forces incumbents into a yardstick competition in which they care about what other incumbents are doing we provide a theoretical framework and empirical evidence using u s state data from 1960 to 1988 the results are encouraging to the view that vote seeking and tax setting are tied together through the nexus of yardstick competition

agglomeration economies in urban manufacturing industries a case of japanese cities abstract the effects of urban agglomeration economies on productivities in two digit manufacturing industries is estimated using the cross section data of japanese cities in 1979 urbanization and localization economies which are major forms of urban agglomeration economies are explicitly separated the estimates of these economies vary considerably among industries light industries receive more productive advantages from urbanization economies than from localization economies but heavy industries experience these economies more from localization economies than from urbanization economies

tax competition as a cause of falling corporate income tax rates a survey of empirical literature since the mid 1980s tax rates on corporate income have declined in most industrialized countries tax competition between countries for mobile capital has frequently been mentioned as an explanation for this development a vast empirical literature dealing with tax competition for mobile capital has emerged this paper categorizes and summarizes the existing empirical studies on this issue particular focus is placed on the isolation of the substantive implications the quantitative study outcomes convey given the empirical evidence surveyed it appears that tax rates indeed decline due to tax competition between countries and in particular due to competition for profits in addition to summarizing the substantive implications of the existing empirical literature the paper addresses the question of whether the existing studies can convincingly isolate tax competition as a driver of falling corporate income tax rates

technological uncertainty and the theory of the firm several recent articles 1 6 have generalized the theory of the firm to incorporate price uncertainty and risk aversion it is now well known that the risk averse entrepreneur will select that level of output at which the expected price equals the marginal cost plus the marginal risk premium leland 5 provides a similar generalization given demand uncertainty however in each case the assumption of a well specified technology is maintained this paper complements and generalizes the earlier work on the theory of the firm by investigating the effect which technological uncertainty has on the firm s optimal production decision like the earlier work on the theory of the firm we show that the firm selects the level of input at which the expected marginal productivity equals the factor price plus the marginal risk premium unlike the earlier work we show that the sign of the marginal risk premium is not always positive and that it depends on the structure of the firm s technology we show that the distinction between price and technological uncertainty is important because each can lead to different implications for firm behavior like its predecessors the model of the firm presented here assumes a single ownerentrepreneur who makes the production decision we modify the baron and sandmo models by assuming that the entrepreneur knows the cost of each production decision but not the output as a result the entrepreneur s decision yields a random variable denoting output and a linear transformation of it denoting profit the entrepreneur chooses the random variable denoting profit to maximize his expected utility there are at least three distinct ways in which our notion of technological uncertainty may be interpreted first the entrepreneur may not know the location of the production surface in this case each production decision yields a random output an increase in the

the dynamic adjustment of local government budgets does spain behave differently the aim of this article is to analyse whether spanish municipalities adjust in response to budget shocks and if so which elements of the budget they are more likely to adjust the methodology we use to answer these questions is a vector error correction model vecm estimated with data from a panel of spanish municipalities during the period 1988 to 2006 our results confirm that spanish municipalities do indeed make adjustments in response to fiscal shocks i e the deficit is stationary in the long run we compare our results with those obtained for us and germany to evaluate if the viability of local finance depends on the institutional arrangement and to analyse how it affects the adjustment patterns we observe that grants have a more important role in the adjustment process in environments where either they have an equalization objective or where there is no clear rule that determines their distribution this fact can generate a moral hazard problem governments tend to spend more due to the exp

games the states don t play welfare benefits and the theory of fiscal federalism fiscal federalism theory predicts that states will behave strategically in welfare programs because voter demand for welfare is sensitive to tax price while the tax price itself changes because of welfare induced migration this paper tests these propositions on afdc in the united states for a panel from 1982 88 using new models for the determination of the recipiency ratio the tax price and composite neighbors the data do not support any substantial tax price elasticity of demand for welfare estimates of migration effects on tax price are found to be sensitive to specification copyright 1995 by mit press

property taxation nash equilibrium and market power abstract differences in tax policy arise from differences in the number of jurisdictions in a metropolitan area following wildasin 4 and bucovetsky 2 the tax rates in the jurisdictions are determined in a nash game in the tax rate the tax rate and public service level as well as the welfare of residents increase as the number of jurisdictions in the metropolis decreases

does fiscal decentralization constrain leviathan new evidence from local property tax competition this paper reexamines whether fiscal decentralization constrains leviathan government using panel data for pennsylvania we compare actual property tax rates to the leviathan revenue maximizing rates for municipalities school districts and counties using spatial econometric methods we also estimate the degree of spatial dependence at the three levels of local government we find that fiscal decentralization results in stronger intergovernmental competition and lower tax rates we also find evidence of collusion among school districts that exhibit high interdependence but also high tax rates this calls into question the current literature s blind use of spatial dependence as a measure of intergovernmental competition

urban diversity and economic growth at the risk of some simplification it is possible to identify four periods of intense study of cities by economists each of these has led to an increased understanding of the economics of urban areas and the unique role played by cities in the modem economy the first of these periods occurred in the decade after world war i only about ten years after the truck revolutionized the transport of goods within urban areas this period included the first systematic empirical analysis of the forces affecting the location of firms and households within cities robert murray haig 1926 and a number of other microeconomists at columbia analyzed the spatial pattems of manufacturing activity in lower manhattan and in the rest of new york city haig jmd his colleagues devoted considerable attention to where things belong in an urban area p 402 providing the first systematic economic analysis of urban spatial structure for example they analyzed the garment industry concluding that it was destined by nature to disperse north of 14th street and predicting that it would follow the estabhshed spatial pattem of the cooperage barrelmaking industry standardization in size and quality of barrels had meant that identical barrels could be made throughout the new york metropolitan area even in new jersey and the introduction of the truck meant that they could be transported cheaply throughout the region and exported the second of these periods though not in chronological order began in the mid 1960s it formalized many of the insights about location incentives within urban areas which had been uncovered a half century before mixed them with the logic of heinrich von thunen s 1826 ancient theories about agricultural crops and land values and applied them to the hotisehold sector the works of william alonso 1964

firm growth in industrial clusters of the united kingdom this article examines how firm growth is influenced by the strength of the industrial cluster in which the firm is located it presents econometric estimates of firm growth for 56 two digit industries in the uk in about half of these industries there is a positive and statistically significant association between firm growth and own sector employment significant associations between firm growth and other sector employment are less common but where these arise they are generally negative we find that a weak rule of thumb applies in most industries own sector effects are positive or insignificant while other sector effects are negative or insignificant cluster effects are strongest in manufacturing manufacturing related and infrastructure but weaker in services

corporate support for ethical and environmental policies a financial management perspective a random sample of 146 fortune 500 firms were surveyed in 1996 to determine whether firm size and industry type affect employers level of involvement and support of ethical and environmental policies and practices the study found relationships between firm size and ethical and environmental policies and practices while the majority of firms 90 3 regardless of size have a formal written code of ethics large firms are more likely to employ an ombudsperson to handle ethical concerns and to have a network confidentiality policy although most firms 83 5 have a formal written environmental policy large firms are more inclined to invest in new ways to reduce the production of various types of waste another interesting twist to the study has to do with the relationships found between industry type and ethical and environmental policies and practices industries such as the computers and electronics and scientific and photographics sectors that are involved with high precision products and industries such as mining crude oil and petroleum refining that utilize natural resources are more inclined to have a formal written code of ethics and social responsibility in addition industries that utilize natural resources are more likely than other industries to have formal written environmental policies and practices

the impact of corporate and personal income taxes on the location of firms and on employment some panel evidence for the swiss cantons abstract the impact of corporate income taxes on location decisions of firms is widely debated in the tax competition literature tax rate differences across jurisdictions may lead to distortions of firms investment decisions empirical evidence on tax induced relocation and subsequent economic development in the us and europe is still inconclusive much the same applies to switzerland while there is some evidence on personal income tax competition between swiss cantons evidence on the impact of intercantonal corporate income tax differences on the location of business within switzerland is missing in this paper we present econometric evidence on the influence of corporate and personal income taxes on the regional distribution of firms in 1981 and 1991 and on cantonal employment using a panel data set of the 26 swiss cantons from 1985 to 1997 the results show that corporate and personal income taxes deter firms to locate in a canton and subsequently reduce cantonal employment

spatial competition between jurisdictions which tax perfectly competitive retail or production centers abstract this paper examines the taxes that jurisdictions choose to impose on perfectly competitive retail centers or production centers within their boundaries retail centers are located on a line and jurisdictions are segments of the line a jurisdiction maximizes the sum of tax revenues and residents consumer surplus the tax chosen by a jurisdiction is a function of the spacing between retail centers the locations of interjurisdictional boundaries and the taxes imposed by neighboring jurisdictions an exporting jurisdiction chooses a positive tax an importing jurisdiction chooses a zero tax even if neighboring jurisdictions have taxes or subsidies if all jurisdictions with retail centers use endogenous fiscal policy then each imposes a positive or zero tax

multilevel approaches and the firm agglomeration ambiguity in economic growth studies empirical studies in spatial economics have shown that agglomeration economies may be a source of the uneven distribution of economic activities and economic growth across cities and regions both localization and urbanization economies are hypothesized to foster agglomeration and growth but recent meta analyses of this burgeoning body of empirical research show that the results are ambiguous recent overviews show that this ambiguity is fuelled by measurement issues and heterogeneity in terms of scale of time and space aggregation growth definitions and the functional form of the models applied alternatively in this paper we argue that ambiguity may be due to a lack of research on firm level performance in agglomerations this research is necessary because the theories that underlie agglomeration economies are microeconomic in nature hierarchical or multilevel modeling which allows micro levels and macro levels to be modeled simultaneously is becoming an increasingly common practice in the social sciences as illustrated by detailed dutch data on firm level productivity employment growth and firm survival we argue that these approaches are also suitable for reducing the ambiguity surrounding the agglomeration firm performance relationship and for addressing spatial sectoral and cross level heterogeneity