a comparison of managers perceptions of short termism in sweden and the u s u s and u k firms have been thought to invest in a more short term manner than japanese and german firms this article uses a questionnaire and interviews to compare u s and swedish top executiv

the corporate psychopaths theory of the global financial crisis this short theoretical paper elucidates a plausible theory about the global financial crisis and the role of senior financial corporate directors in that crisis the paper presents a theory of the global financial crisis which argues that psychopaths working in corporations and in financial corporations in particular have had a major part in causing the crisis this paper is thus a very short theoretical paper but is one that may be very important to the future of capitalism because it discusses significant ways in which corporate psychopaths may have acted recently to the detriment of many further research into this theory is called for

life and work of john richard nicholas stone 1913 1991 sir richard stone knighted in 1978 and nobel laureate in economics in 1984 was one of the pioneering architects of national income and social accounts and one of the few economists of his generation to have faced the challenge of economics as a science by combining theory and measurement within a cohesive framework he was awarded the nobel prize in economics for his fundamental contributions to the development of national accounts but made equally significant contributions to the empirical analysis of consumer behaviour his work on the growth project was also instrumental in the development of appropriate econometric methodology for the construction and the analysis of large disaggregated macroeconometric models this paper provides an analysis of stone s many contributions

applied general equilibrium models of taxation and international trade an introduction and survey we wish to acknowledge the help of three referees and of john pencavel on several earlier drafts as well as the assistance of the modelers whose work is referred to in the paper they corrected our lack of understanding of their work and provided many other helpful comments excellent research and bibliographical assistance have been provided by debbie fretz radwan shaban and janet stotsky helpful comments have been made by charles ballard michael boskin lans bovenberg sylvester damus harvey galper glenn harrison gordon lenjosek jack mutti serena ng t n srinivasan charles stuart and eric toder the authors also acknowledgefinancial support from the national bureau of economic research the national science foundation international business machines and the social sciences and humanities research council ottawa canada

on tax reform systems of business and personal taxation in most western economies are not efficient the paper discusses efficiency losses due to 1 tariffs and sales taxes 2 the nonneutral treatment of business durable inputs 3 differential rates of business income taxation and 4 the taxation of interest estimates of the possible magnitudes of the various efficiency losses are derived the second part of the paper outlines the elements of an efficient system of taxation a feature of the proposed system is that most workers would not have to file tax returns

u s ceos of sbus in luxury goods organizations a mixed methods comparison of ethical decision making profiles this study involved using a mixed method research design to examine the moral philosophy difference between the ethical decision making process of ceos in u s led and non u s led within the luxury goods industry the study employed a manova to compare the ethical profiles between the two leader types us and non us led and a phenomenological qualitative process to locate themes that give indication as to the compatibility of the luxury strategy values and practices with the principles and concepts of responsible leadership and conscious capitalism as the luxury goods industry is facing the first slowdown since 2000 pressure to achieve sales targets in the u s to make up for losses in other markets will place these ceos under extreme pressure from their headquarters these leaders must possess the ethical decision making capability to balance legal and moral dilemmas unique to multinational luxury goods organizations while delivering business results in a challenging environment results of the study show no evidence of difference in the ethical decision making profiles between the two groups of leaders the themes and emergent findings resulting from the qualitative analysis indicate a profound incompatibility between the values informing decision makers using the luxury strategy and those employed by leaders operating within the principles and parameters of responsible leadership and conscious capitalism recommendations for future research include replicating the study with a larger sample within a different geographic region or comparing leaders using the luxury strategy to those using conscious capitalism

a computational analysis of japan s generalized system of preferences abstract in this paper we employ a general equilibrium computational model of world trade to evaluate the generalized system of preferences gsp of japan we conclude that the japanese gsp is strongly trade creating because preferential treatment is offered primarily on products for which japan is a major world exporter however tariff concessions result in a deterioration in japan s terms of trade which lowers welfare in japan and improves the welfare of japan s major trading partners among the ldcs the gain from preferential treatment accrues primarily to the asian nics hong kong south korea singapore and taiwan

the inherent dangers of using computable general equilibrium models as a single integrated modelling framework for sustainability impact assessment a critical note on bohringer and loschel 2006 the search for methods of assessment that best evaluate and integrate the trade offs and interactions between the economic environmental and social components of development has been receiving a new impetus due to the requirement that sustainability concerns be incorporated into the policy formulation process a paper forthcoming in ecological economics bohringer c loschel a in press computable general equilibrium models for sustainability impact assessment status quo and prospects ecological economics claims that computable general equilibrium cge models may potentially represent the much needed back bone tool to carry out reliable integrated quantitative sustainability impact assessments sias while acknowledging the usefulness of cge models for some dimensions of sia this commentary questions the legitimacy of employing this particular economic modelling tool as a single integrating modelling framework for a comprehensive evaluation of the multi dimensional dynamic and complex interactions between policy and sustainability it discusses several inherent dangers associated with the advocated prospects for the cge modelling approach to contribute to comprehensive and reliable sustainability impact assessments the paper warns that this reductionist viewpoint may seriously infringe upon the basic values underpinning the sia process namely a transparent heterogeneous balanced inter disciplinary consultative and participatory take to policy evaluation and building of the evidence base

developing countries and the gains from regionalism links between trade and farm policy reforms in mexico we use a multi country computable general equilibrium cge model with agricultural policy details to simulate the effects of north american free trade agreement nafta we find that mexico gains from nafta only when it also removes domestic distortions in agriculture in that case agriculture can generate allocative efficiency gains large enough to offset the terms of trade losses that arise because mexico has higher initial tariffs than its nafta partners when an rta forces a developing country to reform its domestic distortions that are linked to trade restrictions it becomes a building block toward multilateralism

resource allocation in a few industries determinants and trends when the major corporations divisionalised their organisation after the second world war they devised a performance measurement system to monitor the development of their business units and a capital budgeting system to control the direction of investments the appraisal of investments was decentralised and capital budgeting became a bottom up process standardised through written routines and supervised via a pre approval control system since then investments in training rd indeed it rarely exists in professional service groups notwithstanding the industry does not invest less but concentrates on intangible types of investments the purpose of this article is to describe and identify the factors which dictate the design of the resource allocation system in a few industries and thereby perceive the direction in which the development is heading the analysis identifies five factors which determine the design of the resource allocation system and shows how this affects the resource allocation system in six industries it also discusses different means of control and the future trends and explains why the capital budgeting system becomes less important as industry becomes more knowledge intensive

on the use of ecological prices and system wide indicators derived therefrom to quantify man s impact on the ecosystem abstract ecological prices and other system wide quantitative descriptors of ecosystem functioning are derived from the assumption that ecosystems allocate available resources efficiently among their components however ecological prices are not efficiency prices only and using them does not require one to assume that the ecosystem is completely controlled by man the same prices balance flows of different biomasses in a multicomponent system as such they play the role of exchange prices in a decentralized ecosystem properly defined with the help of ecological prices the resulting ecosystem productivity is no less a significant indicator of ecosystem functioning than the national product is significant for assessing the functioning of an economy considerations of the values taken simultaneously by our proposed indicators and by their economic analogs are of much help in judging the desirability of projects with relatively mild environmental repercussions these values are obtained from an integrated model of a system in which ecological and economic activities are intertwined however for the indicators to have an analytical meaning the methodology should be applied to trace only those dynamic paths during which the system possesses unique state dependent intensive properties in other cases a more comprehensive methodology one which also pays due regard to the viability of the ecosystem must supplement the analytical approach this rather comprehensive methodology is scale dependent and probabilistic in nature while delineating relations between the structure of the system and its behavior this method implies that efficiency and viability are two complementary rather than two commensurate attributes of a single entity an outside observer may be guided by his own values in his attempts to weigh these features but no inherent property of the system exists that supports his values unequivocally nevertheless this paper proposes an approximation to overcome this difficulty and to estimate a quantitative limit to the rate of substitution between productivity and viability such a limit is also an intensive property of the simulated system and the estimation of its value is shown to be crucial for studying the vulnerability of real ecosystems to severe man made disturbances

stepping stones for biological invasion a bioeconomic model of transferable risk we investigate three sources of bias in valuation methods for ecosystem risk failure to consider substitution possibilities between goods failure to consider nonseparability of ecosystem services with market goods and failure to consider substitution possibilities between ecosystems the first two biases are known in the literature and we offer insight on the size of the bias for a specific example our work on spatially transferable risk is novel we develop the concept and show how it may undermine typical invasion prevention strategies we find three key results first partial equilibrium estimates of welfare loss are significantly overestimated relative to general equilibrium estimates if ecosystem services and market goods are substitutes the partial equilibrium bias is greater than if they are compliments second well intended policies do not necessarily reduce overall risk risk reduction actions can transfer risk to another time or location or both which may increase total risk third policies of quotas and inspections have to be extreme to improve welfare with inspections having advantages over quotas

rents and the cost and optimal design of commodity taxes this paper numerically investigates the significance of rents for both the welfare costs and the optimal design of commodity taxes using a general equilibrium model calibrated to 1986 canadian data in the data we use ricardian rents are concentrated in agriculture and utilities with market structure rents concentrated in manufacturing different types of rents have different implications for the welfare cost of taxes and hence also for appropriate tax design ricardian rents lower the cost of taxes rents supported by imperfect competition with no free entry raise the cost of taxes rents supported by regulation generate rent seeking costs and if taxed improve resource allocation model results show a markedly nonuniform optimal tax structure and a substantial influence of the treatment of rents on the pattern of optimal tax rates by commodity

the theory of taxation for developing countries tax policy has far reaching implications for economic development and public administration this book which presents a modern theory of public finance brings together many of the most distinguished economists who have written on the subject they provide coherent principles for tax design and a systematic framework for the analysis of practical questions of tax reform and pricing policy in developing countries the book is especially timely as countries experience increasing shortages of government revenue and the distortions brought about by poorly designed tax systems it pays particular attention to the special problems of developing countries such as the taxation of agriculture the aim throughout is to develop techniques that can be quantitatively applied given the data available and empirical case studies illustrate the methods in action the authors analyze the links between tax theory social cost benefit analysis and the pricing of publicly supplied goods and services they also explore the empirical and econometric problems of identifying the tradeoffs between equity and efficiency other topics treated include the analysis of labor markets the taxation of foreign private investment and of fuel and the pricing of education although the models used concentrate on developing countries most of the methods and discussion apply as well to the problems of more affluent countries

an experimental examination of general equilibrium tax incidence abstract tax incidence is examined in an experimental general equilibrium production micro economy consistent with predictions the imposition of a tax on corporate capital resulted in a flow of capital out of the corporate sector decreased corporate usage of capital relative to labor and tax shifting through decreases in the relative prices of capital and non corporate output although capital owners were able to shift some of the tax burden the corporate tax resulted in a 35 drop in capital owner s share of payoffs implications for policy are discussed

the 2007 2009 financial crisis an erosion of ethics a case study this case study examines five dimensions of the 2007 2009 financial crisis in the united states 1 the devastating effects of the financial crisis on the u s economy including unparalleled unemployment massive declines in gross domestic product gdp and the prolonged mortgage foreclosure crisis 2 the multiple causes of the financial crisis and panic such as the housing and bond bubbles excessive leverage lax financial regulation disgraceful banking practices and abysmal rating agency performance 3 the extraordinary efforts of the federal reserve the federal reserve bank of new york and the department of the treasury to stem the financial freefall triggered by the crisis and resuscitate financial institutions 4 the ethical implications of the unprecedented actions by government institutions to rescue financial institutions and drag the country back from the brink of global financial collapse and the conduct of the various parties contributing to the financial crisis such as the shoddy behavior of mortgage brokers the massive securitization of mortgages into overly complex bonds the excessive leverage of financial institutions the disgraceful work of bond rating firms the abysmal risk management systems employed by financial institutions and the massive operations of the shadow banking and over the counter derivatives markets and 5 the major provisions of the dodd frank wall street reform and consumer protection act signed into law to in response to the financial crisis and for the purpose of correcting the egregious conduct of major financial institutions

on the possibility of an inverse relationship between tax rates and government revenues abstract when arthur laffer and other supply side advocates plot total tax revenue as a function of a particular tax rate they draw an upward sloping segment called the normal range followed by a downward sloping segment called the prohibitive range a brief literature review indicates that tax rates on the prohibitive range in theoretical and empirical models have been the result of particularly high tax rates high elasticity parameters or both the labor tax rate which maximizes total revenue for example will depend on the assumed labor supply elasticity this paper introduces a new curve which summarizes the tax rate and elasticity combinations that result in maximum revenues separating the normal area from the prohibitive area a general purpose empirical u s general equilibrium model is used to plot the laffer curve for several elasticities and to plot the newly introduced curve using the labor tax example results indicate that the u s could conceivably be operating in the prohibitive area but that the tax wedge or labor supply elasticity would have to be much higher than most estimates would suggest

reforming indirect taxes in canada some general equilibrium estimates the current indirect tax system in canada distorts economic activity in a variety of ways and has been the subject of considerable discussion as part of overall tax reform in this paper a general equilibrium model is used to analyze various changes in indirect taxes in canada focusing on possible changes to the federal and provincial sales taxes results suggest that replacing either the federal or provincial sales taxes with a broadly based sales tax yields a small but significant welfare gain the distributional effects from these changes are slightly regressive but appear to be quite small and easily offset by modest income tax credits targeted to low income households results also suggest that a broad based sales tax would be a significantly more efficient revenue source should additional sales tax revenues be required

poverty and income distribution during adjustment issues and evidence from the oecd project drawing lessons from country studies the authors examine the effects of adjustment policies on the distribution of income in chile cote d ivoire ecuador indonesia malaysia and morocco after analyzing the issues that must be confronted in designing adjustment programs with a focus on poverty they synthesize the main conclusions of the different country studies with simulation exercises they explore the effects of the design of the adjustment packages on poverty and on the sustainability of the measures undertaken in these countries these exercises show considerable diversity in the evolution of income distribution during adjustment they also expose the fatal flaws of narrowly designed adjustment programs adjustment programs whether focused on efficiency or on welfare will fail when they do not recognize the interdependence of the three criteria of efficiency welfare and political feasibility adjustment programs must be carefully packaged to fit country circumstances taking into account both the political and economic environments

how to measure labour market effects of immigration a review abstract this paper surveys available empirical evidence on labour market effects of immigration many different approaches have been used already to try to find out whether immigration hurts the labour market opportunities of natives no doubt new approaches will follow in the future as globalization will keep the migration issue on the agenda this literature review discusses the different approaches concentrating on both the methodology and the results at the end it tries to summarize available evidence

general equilibrium analysis of black and white markets a computational approach abstract this paper explores the inter relationship between black and white markets and presents a formulation in which equilibrium conditions hold separately for each type of market for each product with linking conditions across market types using a traditional goods and factor general equilibrium model the simultaneous operation of price controls on white markets and surveillance with penalties for those caught trading on black markets is modelled a numerical example of such an economy is presented using data for india and equilibria under coexistence are reported

the impacts of tax reform on agricultural households estimates of tax reform s impacts usually concentrate on macroeconomic impacts but attention at the industry or sectoral level is often limited our study uses a computable general equilibrium cge model to estimate the disaggregated impacts of the tax cuts and jobs act tcja of 2018 which lowered personal and corporate tax rates focusing on agriculture we use survey data to calculate how the tcja would change the tax rates faced by farmers at the sector level we use internal revenue service data to calculate tax rates for all other producers we then simulate the economy wide and sectoral effects of tcja we find that the tcja would cause a reduction in agricultural output as resources would be reallocated to other sectors using our survey data we extend the cge results to measure the impacts to farm households from changes in on and off farm income we find that most farm households would have income gains from tax reform our tax reform scenario highlights the fact that investment weighs heavily on model results that is firms that are attractive to domestic and foreign investment have gains in demand for their products while other sectors such as primary agriculture experience decreases in production a sensitivity analysis that reduces the attractiveness of the united states in foreign investment shows smaller impacts of tcja especially for macroeconomic variables

the indirect ethics of aig s backdoor bailout we experimentally assess the ethics of the u s government s indirect bailout of the bank counterparties of american international group during the 2008 financial crisis when the indirect bailout is jointly compared with a counterfactual where the government directly bails out the banks subjects judge the indirect bailout to be far more unethical on the other hand when the two scenarios are judged separately subjects consider a direct bailout of banks to be more unethical this suggests that ethical judgments of indirect versus direct action exhibit a type of preference reversal that is dependent upon whether the evaluation mode is joint or separate the pedagogical and policy implications of this preference reversal are discussed

on reforming the welfare system abstract using a simulation model for a small open economy quebec 1986 various negative income tax nit and workfare schemes are compared from the point of view of efficiency and equity the main finding is that there exist workfare schemes that are superior both to the quebec regime of 1986 and to a nit characterized by a 100 percent implicit tax rate however these workfare schemes are dominated by some nit programs this suggests that it may be necessary to have work requirements that vary across socio demographic classes for a workfare plan to be superior to any nit combining workfare with an nit could also be the prescription

a computational general equilibrium model with endogenous unemployment an analysis of the 1980 fiscal reform in mexico abstract in this paper we develop a general equilibrium model of the mexican economy in which unemployment and government deficits play important roles the unemployment rate depends on a downwardly rigid real wage in the urban sector the government runs a deficit simply by selling bonds that consumers consider perfect substitutes for physical capital as savings instruments the model is used to analyze the impact of the 1980 fiscal reform the presence of the rigid real wage and alternative specifications of government policies regarding the size of the deficit are found to have significant effects on the comparative statics results whether or not the reform improves the welfare of rural households compared to urban households for example depends on whether government policy is to keep the deficit constant or keep expenditures constant in response to changes in tax revenues

carbon pricing and energy efficiency improvement why to miss the interaction for developing economies an illustrative cge based application to the pakistan case abstract carbon energy taxes and energy efficiency improvement are studied well in the recent years for their potential adverse impacts on economy especially for lost production and international competitiveness and rebound effects however little attention has been paid to investigate them jointly which can not only prevent fall of energy services cost and thereby rebound effect but reduce the associated macroeconomic costs this study thus employs a 20 sector cge model to explore separately the impacts of carbon tax and its coordinated implementation with energy efficiency improvement on the pakistan economy the country underwent enormous pressure of energy security issues as well as climate change fallouts in the last couple of years and can be regarded as a suitable candidate for energy environmental conservation policies to be considered at a broader context with more concrete efforts the simulation results show that the impact of carbon tax on gdp is negative but resulting reductions in pollutant emissions are relatively high moreover the gdp is expected to grow comparatively positive when analyzed with improvements in energy efficiency with even higher decline in energy consumption demand and so emissions this simultaneous economic and environmental improvement would thus have positive implications regarding sustainable development of the country

on the marginal welfare cost of taxation this paper develops a rigorous partial equilibrium analysis of the determinants of margin al welfare cost mwc of taxes on labor earnings it shows that four key parameters interact to determine the magnitude of mwc using aggregate data and plausible ranges of values for the parameters mwc can vary from under 10 percent to more than 300 percent of marginal tax revenue intermediate parameter values sugge st mwc is in the 25 50 percent range however the more extreme estimates cannot be ruled out on the basis of available evidence suggesting that mwc cannot yet be copyright 1987 by american economic association

investments and investment processes in professional service groups this article describes and analyses the size and character of investments the investment criteria and the investment processes in some professional service groups the focus is on means of control used by the corporate level to influence the volume and direction of investments in groups of companies comparisons are made with standardized service and manufacturing groups professional service groups are of special interest because theirs is a growth industry moreover many manufacturing groups have become more knowledge intensive and have adopted project based structures similar to those found in professional service groups the article shows that professional service groups invest just as heavily as do manufacturing firms but concentrate their investments on training and the development of new knowledge the principles of investment planning and control are the same as in manufacturing groups but the means and the weight attached to them differ investment requests are initiated on the business unit level and major investment requests are channelled through the executive team system for approval however there is no system of defining requesting and reviewing intangible investments rather review is by projects and units the focus is on market and social not administrative means of control

the effects of energy taxes on the kenyan economy a cge analysis abstract the paper utilizes a computable general equilibrium model to evaluate the impact of the second oil price shock and consequent energy tax policies on the kenyan economy simulations show that dramatic change in energy prices and consequent changes in domestic energy consumption generate sequential feedbacks in the production process and affect economic structures terms of trade deteriorate the balance of payments deficit increases and national income falls energy import tariffs and a sales tax are effective policy instruments in controlling energy consumption and increasing government revenue both energy policies have net negative effects on other economic activities similar to those observed under the oil price shock as long as there are no other economically feasible sources of energy supplies there are economic losses associated with less petroleum product consumption in a net oil importing developing economy with oil intensive production technology

optimal poverty reduction adjustment and growth this article analyzes poverty reduction policies in an applied optimal growth framework assuming that poverty reduction is effected through redistribution it focuses on the static and dynamic tradeoffs between equity and efficiency and on the choice between current income and future income that is current productive asset transfers to the poor by numerically estimating a stylized economy it is shown that given reasonable assumptions about behavioral parameters the efficiency cost of poverty reduction in an economy on a steady growth path is relatively low in a period of adjustment following a severe exogenous shock however the scope for redistribution may be extremely limited if there is a constraint on foreign borrowing plausible examples are given of adjustment cases in which poverty reduction becomes optimal only after partial adjustment has been achieved

second best agricultural policy abstract since full economic liberalization is not generally feasible getting the prices of selected agricultural markets right involves optimal price distortions a methodology is developed for calculating the second best output price in a particular market by incorporating externalities government revenue constraints and distortions in other markets into the marginal social cost and benefit schedules for that market in the illustrative application to thailand tax friction consumption externalities and the optimal tariff argument are seen to support an export tax on rice even though import tariffs already discriminate against agricultural exports

the efficiency gains from dynamic tax reform this paper presents a new simulation methodology for determining the pure efficiency gains from tax reform along the general equilibrium rational expectations growth path of life cycle economies the principal findings concern the effects of switching from a proportional income tax with rates similar to those in the u s to either a proportional tax on consumption or a proportional tax on labor income a switch to consumption taxation generates a sustainable welfare gain of almost 2 percent of lifetime resources in contrast a transition to wage taxation generates a loss of greater than percent of lifetime re sources a second general result is that even a mild degree of progressivity in the income tax system imposes a very large efficiency cost this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

estimating distortions in the chinese economy a general equilibrium approach a computable general equilibrium model is constructed to simulate the chinese economy under a system of free markets and is estimated using a calibration procedure coupled with econometric estimation for key parameters the equilibrium solution of the model indicates substantial distortions in prices and resource allocation in the 1983 chinese economy labour was found to be overpaid and capital underpaid in most non agricultural sectors two fifths of the agricultural labour force would have been employed by the non agricultural sectors had china been a market economy the elimination of these distortions would imply a significant improvement in allocative efficiency and a redistribution of income from labour to capital from households to the state and from urban to rural households china embarked upon its economic reform programme in the late 1970s over the period 1979 83 there were dramatic reforms in the rural agricultural sector including the dismantling of the three level ownership of communes the dis tribution of land to peasant households and the relaxation of controls over labour transfer from the agricultural sector to the rural non agricultural sector in contrast in the urban economy and especially in the state industrial sector reforms were confined to modest improvements in incentives for enterprises and workers notably through the introduction of profit retention schemes and bonus systems in 1983 much of the traditional mechanism of resource alloca tion remained essentially intact the problem of distortions in the price system and in resource allocation in centrally planned economies cpes has long been a concern of economists and there has been a considerable interest in empirical modelling of distortions in cpes thornton 1971 estimated potential efficiency gains from equalizing the return to capital for different branches of soviet industry in the early 1960s desai and martin 1983 provided similar estimates using econometrically esti mated production functions portes and winter 1980 estimated excess demand in the aggregated consumption goods market for a number of pre reform eastern european economies using the technique of econometric dis equilibrium modelling podkamine 1988 calculated free market demands and prices in the absence of rationing for consumption goods markets in poland during 1965 86 by transplanting demand systems estimated for market econ omies into the quantity constrained polish economy chow 1985 investigated the efficiency of labour allocation in chinese state industry by comparing the average wage rate with the value of the marginal product of labour all these studies however involve partial equilibrium analysis in the sense that they are concerned only with examining the distortion in a specific market and therefore have tended to ignore distortions in the rest of the economy and a

economic effects of vat reforms in germany in the tax policy debate differentiation of value added taxes is often justified by distributional concerns our quantitative analysis for germany indicates that such concerns are misplaced we find that the abolition of vat differentiation has only negligible redistributive effects instead reduced vat are found to act as industry specific subsidies whereas the overall welfare effects of pure vat reforms are very small a revenue neutral introduction of a harmonised vat combined with reductions in the marginal income tax rates or social security contributions turns out to produce substantial welfare gains for all households

property tax classification and welfare in urban areas a general equilibrium computational approach abstract this paper examines some of the structural and welfare effects of a change from a tax system in an urban area that classifies property by use for tax assessment to one that does not discriminate in its treatment of property a long run general equilibrium model of intraurban spatial location is developed due to analytical intractability the tax policy changes are simulated by use of a fixed point algorithm the model is stylized to the boston metropolitan area to the extent possible general equilibrium versions of compensating and equivalent variations in income are used as measures of welfare change the qualitative welfare results obtained from sensitivity analysis are fairly robust in a substantial majority of the cases considered there is a welfare gain in moving from the particular tax classification structure posited to a system in which all property is taxed at the same effective rate

the global financial crisis and the values of professionals in finance an empirical analysis the idea that the ethical values of professionals in finance pifs e g stockbrokers and fund managers have played a role in the global financial crisis gfc is widespread the crisis of ethics debate is important concerning one of the main policy challenges of our times but is based on popular lore and anecdotes rather than systematic evidence we analyze the self enhancement and self transcendence values of pifs vis a vis the general population and test for patterns of variation that are consistent with the idea of a crisis of values meaning patterns of variation that would implicate pifs values in the gfc employing pre crisis data allows for an unbiased assessment results reveal only minor differences in values between pifs and the general population too small to support the idea of a crisis of ethical values by objective standards extensive robustness checks confirm these findings sometimes actually revealing values differences counter to the crisis of ethical values idea we conclude that the financial system would not have fared better had we had a different breed of pifs rather situational forces can induce severe disregard for the welfare of others also in people with ordinary decent values hence if anything the gfc shows that the financial services industry has been providing an environment highly conducive to unethical behavior the practical implication is that fixes to the financial system can only come from improved regulatory design

a shoven whalley model of a small open economy an illustration with philippine tariffs abstract this paper describes an applied general equilibrium model of a price taking economy in both imports and exports sector specific factors are incorporated to avoid complete specialization problems a hicksian composite traded good market is used for achieving trade balance in the model foreign and domestic goods are assumed perfect substitutes for illustration philippine tariffs and export taxes are analyzed using the model

evaluation of external market effects and government intervention in malaysia s agricultural sector a computable general equilibrium framework the purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of changes in the external trade environment and domestic economic policies on the agricultural development of malaysia the scope of this research also includes providing further insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the computable general equilibrium cge methodology for agricultural policy analysis the first analysis focuses on the export agriculture sector which encompasses malaysia s two primary agricultural commodities rubber and palm oil heavily dependent on exports of rubber in the 1950s and 1960s malaysia has since built a more diversified economy with strong emphasis on manufacturing export agriculture however is still an important component of the national economy the second objective examines the influence of domestic policy on agricultural development the simulation results demonstrate the growing resiliency of the malaysian economy to external shocks also they point to the domestic economy s ability to buffer internal policy induced distortions

exogenous shocks contagion and bank soundness a macroeconomic framework abstract in a model where all banks are initially solvent an exogenous shock affects confidence causing a flight from deposits into domestic and foreign currency real interest rates increase unexpectedly affecting firms and raising the share of the banks nonperforming assets this contagion causes a bank run simulations show that compensatory monetary policy mitigates the bank run but causes macroeconomic imbalances combining compensatory monetary policy with tight fiscal policies slows the bank run and mitigates insolvency a devaluation combined with compensatory monetary policy reduces insolvencies and increases the growth of real income but at the cost of increased inflation

the parallel market of illegal aliens a computational approach abstract this paper develops the notion of illegal aliens as a parallel market in coexistence with the regular market of legal labor in the presence of both price controls on legal labor by minimum wage legislation and quantity controls on illegal aliens by immigration laws illegal aliens involve not only rural urban migration but also tax evasion and deportation costs we develop an analytical equilibrium structure which links markets for legal labor and illegal aliens illustrate how much an equilibrium can be computed and explore some implications of the linkage using united states data

the displacement and multiplier effects of regional selective assistance a computable general equilibrium analysis this paper uses a hybrid approach to simulate the effects of regional selective assistance rsa for scotland this combines industrial survey estimation of the direct impacts and computable general equilibrium cge modelling of the system wide effects the results are compared to those derived using the method currently adopted in official evaluation studies of rsa and other regional regeneration policy instruments the cge approach captures capacity labour market displacement and migration effects ignored in existing studies simulation identifies the conditions under which these effects are likely to be quantitatively important a partir d une facon hybride cet article cherche a simuler pour l ecosse l impact des primes regionales une estimation des effets directs a partir d une enquete aupres de l industrie se voit allier a la modelisation des effets generalises par une analyse d equilibre general sur ordinateur on compare les resultats a ceux qui proviennent des methodes employees actuellement

external sector closing rules in applied general equilibrium models abstract this paper examines formulations of external sector behavior adopted in some of the recent applied general equilibrium models in many cases these models are constructed for single economies and the model builder attempts to use a convenient external sector specification to close the model issues and difficulties with export demand and import supply functions for foreigners which satisfy trade balance and the modeling of small economy price taking behavior are explored

applied general equilibrium models for energy studies a survey the importance of energy in any economy developed or underdeveloped became clear after the first oil shock in 1973 since then different studies were carried out to formulate energy policies and to study their impact on the economies since energy policy issues are related to various aspects of the economy such as price formation output determination income generation and distribution consumption behaviour government operation etc a coherent and systematic mechanism is required for such analysis by offering such a framework of analysis age models gained popularity among energy modellers in the 1980s the environmental issues have gained importance and the focus shifted towards curbing and containing emissions of environmentally unfriendly gases resulting from the use of energy age models because of their capability to capture the complexities of the economy have found relevance in analysing the economic impacts of controlling pollution and greenhouse gases this paper surveys the literature on such general equilibrium models as applied to energy studies and reports their special features evolution through time as well as their limitations

bank failures and fiscal austerity policy prescriptions for a developing country abstract this work employs a dynamic general equilibrium model to evaluate the causes and implications of bank insolvencies we apply the model to stylized data from bangladesh a country whose banking system is currently suffering from large stocks of non performing assets the model is used to derive positive conclusions about alternative policy instruments designed to alleviate the impact of these insolvencies a benchmark case is simulated using historical exogenous parameters we then generate a bank failure by assuming that firms cannot service their debt if their interest obligations rise above their anticipated return on capital the public withdraws deposits from the banking system in reaction to worries about defaulting bank assets if banks optimize by restricting credit to risky borrowers these failures can be partially avoided such bank behavior is often prohibited in developing countries so we investigate an active monetary policy that compensates banks for withdrawn deposits the resulting outcome indicates that such a policy can slow the pace of bank failures although at the cost of certain macro imbalances our final simulation imposes a reduction in public spending in order to tighten fiscal policy and thereby reduce budgetary pressure the resulting decline in interest rates eliminates all investor defaults and bank failures we conclude that the combination of compensating monetary policy and restrictive fiscal policy may offer the best way of responding to a bank crisis

organizational culture in the financial sector evidence from a cross industry analysis of employee personal values and career success we assess the organizational culture in the finance industry in relation to the global financial crisis gfc and consider the potential of cultural change to improve the financial sector to avoid response biases we build on the person organization p o fit literature and develop a novel indirect method for assessing organizational culture that revolves around relationships between employees personal traits and their career success in the industry or organization under study we analyze personal values concerning the pursuit of private gain self enhancement values versus personal values concerning caring for others self transcendence values and consider whether employees that value self enhancement more and self transcendence less enjoy more career success relative to their peers when working in finance than when working in other industries results do not reveal any sort of cross industry differences that would implicate the finance industry s culture in the financial crisis instead we find the opposite namely that strong self enhancement values and weak self transcendence values go together with less career success in the finance industry compared to other industries hence if anything the culture in the finance industry does not seem to resonate well with professionals that seek to pursue personal gain at the expense of clients welfare implication is that cultural change has little potential to improve the financial system meanwhile the method for assessing organizational culture indirectly by analyzing relationships between employees traits and their career outcomes has wider applicability particularly when relying on scores or measures obtained directly from the people concerned is likely to render biased evidence

exploring the transition to integrated reporting through a practice lens an australian customer owned bank perspective this article explores the transition to integrated reporting by a customer owned bank referred to as goodbank and identifies the drivers of this transition thereby providing insights for other businesses seeking to engage in such reporting practice theory provides a theoretical lens for this study a case study approach encompassing in depth interviews and documents analysis enabled the data to be collected for this research this study finds that a customer owned business context enables innovative approaches to reporting an understanding of reporting and recognition of the potential value of integrated reporting basic guidelines for such a practice and organisational ethical values and goals based on a combination of economic social and environmental considerations matched by an organisational structure that embeds economic social and environmental responsibilities rather than treating these as separate silos enabled goodbank to transition to integrated reporting and differentiate itself from its competitors and other organisations

the interface between environmental and trade policies last march i gave the frank paish lecture to the society under the title economic life in a greenhouse in my lecture i tried both to survey professional opinion as to some of the possible climatic implications of the greenhouse effect and also to draw out the economic consequences which might follow towards the end of my talk i made reference to some preliminary joint work with randy wigle 2 a colleague at wilfrid laurier university in canada on the global consequences of carbon tax schemes designed to limit and or reduce the build up of co2 emissions a key element underlying the greenhouse effect the written version of the lecture consciously does not reproduce the survey material which made up the first part of the lecture instead it elaborates on the issues raised towards the end it incorporates the work by randy wigle and myself and offers some thoughts on what seems to be a growing issue for the iggos namely the consequences for the international trading system of interactions between trade issues and both future global and current national environmental policies what follows emphasises that if they occur in the next few decades global policy responses3 carbon taxes tradeable permit schemes to environmental concerns will almost certainly have large economic effects among these are likely to be significant effects on trade patterns and trade volumes large interregional effects will also accompany such policies depending upon how such policies are implemented also the i99os may see a growing use of trade measures to achieve objectives set for environmental policies environmental policies towards such countries as brazil the philippines and others where deforestation is a concern may increasingly take the form of threatened trade sanctions unless compliance with global environmental policy objectives occurs 4

taxing tourism and subsidizing non tourism a welfare enhancing solution to dutch disease abstract using a combined analysis of a general equilibrium and a partial equilibrium this study models the impacts of a combined policy tool based on taxing tourism and subsidizing non tourism in a tourism dependent destination the results suggest that such a policy tool while widely discussed in economics literature may not be suitable for a tourism destination as it might have adverse effects on local welfare