analytical solution for an investment problem under uncertainties with shocks abstract we derive the optimal investment decision in a project where both demand and investment cost are stochastic processes eventually subject to shocks we extend the approach used in dixit and pindyck 1994 to deal with two sources of uncertainty and we assume that the underlying processes are jump diffusion processes assuming certain conditions on the parameters we are able to derive a closed expression for the value of the firm finally we present comparative statics for the investment threshold with respect to the relevant parameters

partisanship tax policy and corporate profit shifting in a globalized world economy political science scholarship has found mixed evidence on the impact of partisanship on the taxation of firms in this article i show that although left leaning governments set tax rates at higher

innovations improvements and the optimal adoption of new technologies abstract this paper extends the literature on technology adoption by introducing a distinction between technological breakthroughs innovations and the engineering refinements improvements that follow such a breakthrough firms do not necessarily wait for a future technological breakthrough but instead have an incentive to delay the adoption of a new technology until it is sufficiently advanced we characterize a firm s adoption decision as the solution to a continuous time infinite horizon dynamic programming problem which gives rise to an ordinary differential equation that is highly non linear and does not have a closed form solution we thus employ projection techniques and show how these techniques can be applied to the analysis of optimal stopping problems

technology acquisition with technological progress effects of expectations rivalry and uncertainty abstract we study the effect of expectations regarding technological progress on a firm s technology adoption decision in a duopoly new generation technologies become available one in each period with successive generations representing better and better performance a game theoretic framework is used involving two identical firms competing in the same market over two periods it is shown that expectations retard adoption of the first period technology it is also shown that an asymmetric equilibrium results in higher social welfare and that more investment does not necessarily mean higher levels of welfare uncertainty is shown to have either no effect or a negative effect on the adoption of the current technology when nash equilibrium holds however when subgame perfect equilibrium holds uncertainty has a more complicated effect and numerical examples show that it may even encourage the adoption of the current technology relative to the deterministic equilibrium

evaluating natural resource investments notwithstanding impressive advances in the theory of finance over the past 2 decades practical procedures for capital budgeting have evolved only slowly the standard technique which has remained unchanged in essentials since it was originally proposed see dean 1951 bierman and smidt 1960 derives from a simple adaptation of the fisher 1907 model of valuation under certainty under this technique expected cash flows from an investment project are discounted at a rate deemed appropriate to their risk and the resulting present value is compared with the cost of the project this standard textbook technique reflects modern theoretical developments only insofar as estimates of the discount rate may be obtained from crude application of single period asset pricing theory but see brennan 1973 bogue and roll 1974 turnbull 1977 constantinides 1978 the inadequacy of this approach to capital budgeting is widely acknowledged although not widely discussed its obvious deficiency is its the evaluation of mining and other natural resource projects is made particularly difficult by the high degree of uncertainty attaching to output prices it is shown that the techniques of continuous time arbitrage and stochastic control theory may be used not only to value such projects but also to determine the optimal policies for developing managing and abandoning them the approach may be adapted to a wide variety of contexts outside the natural resource sector where uncertainty about future project revenues is a paramount concern

technological expectations and adoption of improved technology abstract attention is focused upon the adoption demand rather than the creation supply of new technology which improves from time to time based on the expected flow of technological progress over which the firm demander has no control it must decide either to adopt the current best available technology or to postpone adoption the distinguishing features of the model are that more than one technological innovation is anticipated and expectations about the likelihood of such innovations are revised as time passes since the last innovation our analysis shows that the firm will adopt the current best practice if its technological lag exceeds a certain threshold moreover as time passes without new technological advances it may become profitable to purchase a technology that has been available even though it was not profitable to do so in the past

access based consumption the case of car sharing access based consumption defined as transactions that can be market mediated but where no transfer of ownership takes place is becoming increasingly popular yet it is not well theorized this study examines the nature of access as it contrasts to ownership and sharing specifically the consumer object consumer consumer and consumer marketer relationships six dimensions are identified to distinguish among the range of access based consumptionscapes temporality anonymity market mediation consumer involvement the type of accessed object and political consumerism access based consumption is examined in the context of car sharing via an interpretive study of zipcar consumers four outcomes of these dimensions in the context of car sharing are identified lack of identification varying significance of use and sign value negative reciprocity resulting in a big brother model of governance and a deterrence of brand community the implications of our findings for understanding the nature of exchange consumption and brand community are discussed

elections coalitions and legislative outcomes predictions of electoral behavior in a multiparty setting should be a function of the voters beliefs about how parties will perform following an election similarly party behavior in a legislature should be a function of electoral promises and rewards we develop a multistage game theoretic model of three party competition under proportional representation the final policy outcome of the game is generated by a noncooperative bargaining game between the parties in the elected legislature this game is essentially defined by the vote shares each party receives in the general election and the parties electoral policy positions at the electoral stage parties and voters are strategic in that they take account of the legislative implications of any electoral outcome we solve for equilibrium electoral positions by the parties and final policy outcomes

mixed signals central bank independence coordinated wage bargaining and european monetary union plans for the european monetary union emu are based on the conventional postulate that increasing the independence of the central bank can reduce inflation without any real economic effects however the theoretical and empirical bases for this claim rest on models of the economy that make unrealistic information assumptions and omit institutional variables other than the central bank when signaling problems between the central bank and other actors in the political economy are considered we find that the character of wage bargaining conditions the impact of central bank independence by rendering the signals between the bank and the bargainers more or less effective greater central bank independence can reduce inflation without major employment effects where bargaining is coordinated but it can bring higher levels of unemployment where bargaining is less coordinated thus currency unions like the emu may require higher levels of unemployment to control inflation than their proponents envisage they will have costs as well as benefits and these will be unevenly distributed among and within the member nations depending on the changes they induce in the status of the bank and of wage coordination

global markets and national politics collision course or virtuous circle increasing exposure to trade foreign direct investment and liquid capital mobility have not prompted a pervasive policy race to the neoliberal bottom among the oecd countries one reason is that there are strong political incentives for governments to cushion the dislocations and risk generated by openness moreover countries with large and expanding public economies when balanced with increased revenues even from capital taxes have not suffered from capital flight or higher interest rates this is because the modern welfare state comprising income transfer programs and publicly provided social services generates economically important collective goods that are undersupplied by markets and that actors are interested in productivity value these range from the accumulation of human and physical capital to social stability under conditions of high market uncertainty to popular support for the market economy itself as a result arguments about the demise of national autonomy in the global economy are considerably overdrawn

tax policy in an era of internationalization explaining the spread of neoliberalism i offer an explanation for the widespread diffusion of neoliberal tax policies in the developed democracies after accounting for the policy influences of commonly experienced domestic and international forces i consider several plausible paths of diffusion of neoliberal tax structure my central argument is that the highly visible 1980s market conforming tax reform in the united states should be especially important in shaping subsequent tax policies in other polities there are substantial reasons to believe however that domestic political and institutional forces will shape policymaker assessment of the benefits and costs of neoliberal reforms the strength of right parties and the degree to which the median voter has moved right should condition adoption of neoliberal tax policy the institutions of national and sector coordinated capitalism should also slow the enactment of neoliberal tax reforms i assess these arguments with empirical models of 1981 98 tax rates on capital in sixteen nations i find that changes in u s tax policy influence subsequent reforms in other polities in the long term all nations move toward the u s neoliberal tax structure analysis also shows however that the short term responsiveness to u s tax reforms is notably greater where uncoordinated market institutions are dominant theory and extensive qualitative and quantitative evidence indicate that pressures to compete for mobile assets as balanced against the economic and political costs of adoption anchor the process of diffusion of neoliberal tax policy there is little evidence for the view that systematic policy learning or social emulation drove tax policy diffusion earlier versions of this article were presented at the center for european studies and weatherhead center for international affairs harvard university center for international studies ucla and yale university as well as the 2002 annual meetings of the american political science association an earlier version was published as minda de gunzburg center for european studies harvard university working paper 120 i thank alex hicks rob franzese torben iversen andy martin cathie jo martin participants in the yale ucla and harvard conferences especially geoffrey garrett helen milner dennis quinn and beth simmons and two anonymous referees and the editors of international organization for helpful comments i also gratefully acknowledge the contribution of sven steinmo that comes by way of our past collaborative work on tax policy

the new political economy of taxation in advanced capitalist democracies earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 1999 annual meeting of the american political science association september 1 5 atlanta ga and the 2000 annual meeting of the midwest political science association april 27 30 chicago il the authors thank steffen ganghof philip genschel mark hallerberg alex hicks william keech dennis quinn and the anonymous reviewers and editor of this journal for many helpful comments and dennis quinn for generously sharing data duane swank thanks the german marshal fund of the united states and marquette university for support of work incorporated in this paper data utilized in this paper are available from duane swank marquette edu

investment in technological innovations an option pricing approach abstract this paper develops a model of the optimal investment strategy for a firm confronted with a sequence of technological innovations we incorporate many of the most important characteristics of real world technology markets for example we permit innovations to be stochastic in their arrival times and their profitability we also incorporate learning so that firms adopting current innovations become better able to benefit from future innovations the model yields four distinct investment strategies the model is then used to predict actual firm policy these implications are discussed and compared with observed firm behavior

on the ineffectiveness of tax policy in altering long run growth harberger s superneutrality conjecture abstract in 1964 harberger conjectured that although theory predicts that changes in tax rates affect investment and growth in the long run in practice tax policy is an ineffective instrument to influence growth this paper provides theoretical and empirical evidence in favor of this view the growth effects of tax policy in the class of endogenous growth models driven by human capital accumulation are examined and numerical simulations of these models confirm the results harberger predicted cross country panel regressions estimated using a new method for measuring effective tax rates produce significant investment effects from taxes that are consistent with negligible growth effects these results are robust to the introduction of other growth determinants

biomass and ccs the influence of technical change the combination of bioenergy production and carbon capture and storage technologies beccs provides an opportunity to create negative emissions of co2 in biofuel production however high capture costs reduce profitability this paper investigates carbon price uncertainty and technological uncertainty through a real option approach we compare the cases of early and delayed ccs deployments an early technological progress may arise from aggressive r d and pilot project programs but the expected cost reduction remains uncertain we show that this approach results in lower emissions and more rapid investment returns although these returns will not fully materialise until after 2030 in a second set of simulations we apply an incentive that prioritises sequestered emissions rather than avoided emissions in other words this economic instrument does not account for co2 emissions from the ccs implementation itself but rewards all the sequestered emissions in contrast with technological innovations this subsidy is certain for the investor the resulting investment level is higher and the project may become profitable before 2030 negative emission in bioethanol production does not seem to be a short term solution in our framework whatever the carbon price drift

the origins of tax systems a french american comparison this article examines the origins of tax systems through a historical comparison of france and the united states and analysis of several shadow cases the article explains why the united states has relied more heavily on progressive income taxation than france which has favored regressive sales taxes this study traces the origins of these two tax systems to the early 20th century arguing that decisions about tax structure were shaped by resistance to the concentration of economic power in the united states and the centralization of state power in france in the united states the rapid concentration of economic power in the late 19th century spurred a political movement for a tax with clear redistributive purposes in france resistance to the centralization of state power and concomitant fears of fiscal inquisition weakened the drive for an effective income tax leaving the state to rely on consumption taxes to meet its revenue needs these 19th century movements of resistance to modernization shaped the foundations of contemporary political economy

the danish green certificate system some simple analytical results we formulate a simple static equilibrium model for the electricity market taking account of both green certificates and co2 emission permits the objective is to investigate the relationship between these markets under the existence of upper and lower price bounds on the green certificates both in the short and in the long run we perform various comparative static changes of the parameters of the model and study how these affect the endogenous variables of the model as well as producers and consumers surplus we also investigate the effects of imports and exports of electricity several comparative static results are derived and in particular it is shown that harsher co2 emission constraints and increased import wholesale price both may lead to reduced capacity of green electricity

corporate tax systems multinational enterprises and economic integration abstract multinational firms are known to shift profits and countries are known to compete over shifty profits two major principles for corporate taxation are separate accounting sa and formula apportionment fa these two principles have very different qualities when it comes to preventing profit shifting and preserving national tax autonomy most oecd countries use sa in this paper we show that a reduction in trade barriers lowers equilibrium corporate taxes under sa but leads to higher taxes under fa from a welfare point of view the choice of tax principle is shown to depend on the degree of economic integration

understanding collaborative consumption an extension of the theory of planned behavior with value based personal norms collaborative consumption is proposed as a potential step beyond unsustainable linear consumption patterns toward more sustainable consumption practices despite mounting interest in the topic little is known about the determinants of this consumer behavior we use an extended theory of planned behavior to examine the relative influence of consumers personal norms and the theory s basic sociopsychological variables attitudes subjective norms and perceived behavioral control on collaborative consumption moreover we use this framework to examine consumers underlying value and belief structure regarding collaborative consumption we measure these aspects for 224 consumers in a survey and then assess their self reported collaborative consumption behavior in a second survey our structural model fits the data well collaborative consumption is more strongly through intentions influenced by personal norms and attitudes than by subjective norms personal norms to consume collaboratively are determined by consumers altruistic biospheric and egoistic value orientations cost savings efficient use of resources and community with others are found to be consumers attitudinal beliefs underlying collaborative consumption we conclude that collaborative consumption can be pin pointed neither as a mere form of economic exchange nor as a primarily normative form of sharing resources instead collaborative consumption is determined by economic egoistic e g cost savings and normative e g altruistic and biospheric value orientations motives implications for collaborative consumption research the theory of planned behavior and practitioners are discussed

the boundaries of multinational enterprises and the theory of international trade this paper begins with a review of empirical evidence on multinational firms conceptual underpinnings of a theory are developed relying in particular on the notion of knowledge capital as a mobile joint input into geographically separated production facilities this idea is embedded in a simple two country general equilibrium model that supports multinational production in equilibrium under conditions consistent with the empirical evidence the final section examines internalization and shows why certain properties of knowledge capital also imply a preference for transferring technologies internally within the firm rather than through arm s length markets

remodeling the competition for capital how domestic politics erases the race to the bottom this paper proposes and tests a new formal model of the competition for capital using the analogy of a tournament as a substitute for the race to the bottom model our key insight is that political costs that accompany legislating have both direct and indirect effects on the likelihood and scale of reforms while countries with higher political costs are less likely themselves to enact reforms the presence of these costs also reduces competing countries incentives to reform regardless of their own political costs domestic politics therefore mitigates the pressures for downward convergence of tax policy despite increased capital mobility we examine the capital tax policies in oecd countries during the period from 1980 to 1997 and find that states are sensitive to tax reforms in competitor countries although their responses to reforms are mediated by their own domestic costs to reform we define two potential sources of political costs of reform transaction costs due to the presence of multiple veto players in the legislative process and constituency costs due to ideological opposition to policy changes that benefit capital our evidence reveals that a reduction in these costs either domestically or abroad increases the likelihood that a country enacts tax reforms hat are the policy consequences of the elimination of various barriers to international capital and labor mobility robert frost in mending wall instructed that good fences make good neighbors scholars have increasingly expressed this sentiment s converse i e the pessimistic viewpoint that as the mobility of factors of production increases international competition assumes a beggar thy neighbor character when fences separate countries and make it difficult for factors of production to move from country to country governments can operate essentially as monopolistic suppliers of services governments can extract a price from the owners of productive resources in the form of taxes or can place regulatory restrictions on production without fear that factors of production will emigrate when the fences fall and governments must compete with each other for the same resources a state s or country s ability to tax or regulate diminishes in the extreme countries lose sovereignty over domestic policymaking e g andrews 1994 and lee and mckenzie 1989 the model that most scholars employ implicitly or explicitly to understand international or interstate competition is known commonly by its central prediction the race to the bottom e g oates 1972

leaning right and learning from the left diffusion of corporate tax policy across borders there is an increased focus in comparative politics and international relations on how choices of governments are dependent on choices made by other governments the authors argue that although the relationship between policy choices across countries is often labeled as either diffusion or competition in many cases the theoretical mechanisms underpinning these labels are unclear in this article the authors build a model of social learning with a specific application to the diffusion of corporate tax reductions the model yields predictions that are differentiable from existing models of tax competition specifically the authors argue that social learning is most likely in the wake of tax policy cuts by left governments they test the model using an existing data set of corporate tax rate changes and an author created data set of changes in tax legislation covering 20 organisation for economic co operation and development countries the authors empirical findings show that social learning is an important determinant of corporate tax policy making

strategic trade policy when firms can invest abroad when are tariffs and quotas equivalent abstract this paper investigates the equivalence of tariffs and quotas when the market in question is imperfectly competitive and open to direct foreign investment the absence of a foreign supply response under a quota so critical to the analysis of the differential impact of tariffs and quotas under imperfect competition is called into question by the potential occurence of direct foreign investment the paper proves the equivalence of optimal tariffs and quotas when the markets are oligopolistic and open to direct foreign investment

effective tax rates in macroeconomics cross country estimates of tax rates on factor incomes and consumption abstract this paper proposes a method for computing tax rates using national accounts and revenue statistics using this method we construct time series of tax rates for large industrial countries the method identifies the revenue raised by different taxes at the general government level and defines aggregate measures of the corresponding tax bases this method yields estimates of effective tax rates on factor incomes and consumption consistent with the tax distortions faced by a representative agent in a general equilibrium framework these tax rates compare favorably with existing estimates of marginal tax rates and highlight important international differences in tax policy

workers rights in open economies global production and domestic institutions in the developing world previous large n research suggests that globalization could have either positive or negative consequences for labor rights in developing nations this article examines the ways in which domestic political institutions and interests conditions the effects of economic globalization it develops several hypotheses regarding the impact of domestic factors on labor rights outcomes and uses the case of costa rica to assess these hypotheses the result is that although segments of the costa rican economy and labor force have benefited from industrial upgrading in recent years the enclave nature of the export oriented economy and the historical repression of organized labor render difficult the achievement of some internationally recognized core labor rights the article concludes by discussing some of the issues for future research that are highlighted by the costa rican case

countervailing market responses to corporate co optation and the ideological recruitment of consumption communities from a conventional theoretical standpoint the corporatization of the organic food movement is an example of co optation co optation theory conceptualizes the commercial marketplace as an ideological force that assimilates the symbols and practices of a counterculture into dominant norms our alternative argument is that co optation can generate a countervailing market response that actively promotes the oppositional aspects of a counterculture attenuated by the process of commercial mainstreaming to develop this theoretical argument we analyze community supported agriculture which has emerged in response to the corporate co optation of the organic food movement we conclude by discussing how tacit political ideologies structure consumption communities

irreversible investment and r d spillovers in a dynamic duopoly investments in new production processes usually involve a significant amount of rd an increase in uncertainty delaying the equilibrium calls for higher subsidization rates third numerical simulations show that the spillover reduces the difference between the leader s and the follower s maximum value functions accordingly our model can help generate realistic market betas

good timing the economics of optimal stopping abstract this paper presents an economic interpretation of the optimal stopping of perpetual project opportunities under both certainty and uncertainty prior to stopping the expected rate of return from delay exceeds the rate of interest the expected rate of return from delay is the sum of the expected rate of change in project value and the expected rate of change in the option premium associated with waiting at stopping the expected rate of return from delay has fallen to the rate of interest viewing stopping in this way unifies the theoretical and practical insights of the theory of stopping under certainty and uncertainty

timing of investment under technological and revenue related uncertainties the effects of two forms of uncertainty on the timing of irreversible investment are considered technological uncertainty is modeled as a poisson arrival process that reduces the cost of investment while revenue uncertainty is modeled as a diffusion process technological uncertainty has no effect on the optimal investment policy when revenue uncertainty is absent however when combined with revenue uncertainty increased technological uncertainty makes investment less attractive relative to waiting the paper also makes a more general point in clarifying the difference in how diffusion type of uncertainty and unidirectional stochastic progress affect investment timing

globalization party positions and the median voter the authors argue that the effects of economic globalization on social democratic parties in western europe are conditional on the position of the median voter if the median is far enough to the right such parties will adopt business friendly policies because they are required to win office only when the median is relatively far to the left will globalization constrain social democratic parties forcing them to adopt policies further to the right in order to retain credibility it is on this basis the authors argue that empirical studies are misspecified unless they include an interaction between measures of globalization and the position of the median in addition to presenting formal theoretical arguments the article reports empirical findings from fifteen countries in the period from 1973 to 2002 that support the conclusion that the effects of globalization are indeed contingent on the median the authors find that the effects of globalization are significant for social democratic parties only in circumstances in which the median is relatively far to the left

strategic trade policy and welfare foreign equity ownership is shown empirically to weaken significantly and occasionally reverse common strategic trade policy results existing levels of u s cross ownership for example reduce the average optimal export subsidy by 47 relative to the brander and spencer journal of international economics 1985 18 83 100 value in industries with particularly high cross ownership and relatively small imputed labor rents optimal subsidies fall to less than one seventh of their former level previous studies which overlook high rates of cross ownership overstate the effectiveness of strategic policies most sharply in sectors with above average expected profitability scope for strategic investments and barriers to rent dissipation

internalization an event study test abstract the internalization theory of multinational firms proposes that direct international investment occurs when a firm has information related intangible assets with public good properties we find that firms with characteristics suggesting the presence of information based assets experience a significantly positive stock price reaction upon announcing a foreign acquisition on the other hand firms apparently lacking such assets experience at best zero abnormal returns upon announcing overseas acquisitions

interactions between the power and green certificate markets abstract the current trend of liberalising the power markets is combined with ambitious deployment plans for power production based on renewable energy supplies a new policy scheme to ensure this extension has been developed in the form of a green certificate system with a politically determined target of deployment in such a system producers of renewably based electricity receive tradable certificates in proportion to the electricity they produce the producer can thereby sell these certificates and receive additional revenue apart from the power price this paper studies the price and consumption effects of such a system with a simple model we show that the effects are ambiguous this ambiguity is caused by the interaction between the two markets therefore the green certificate system is difficult to manage if the state has parallel energy targets such as a desired deployment of renewably based energy and a stabilisation or reduction of the energy consumption in addition this complicates the regulation through a deployment target of renewably based power production as the regulator has to be aware of the different effects which follow a specific target until now these effects have not been considered in the analyses of the green certificate system when introducing the system even though it might have considerable consequences for the success of the system

why the poor do not expropriate the rich an old argument in new garb we consider a political economy with two partisan parties each party represents a given constituency of voters if one party labour represents poor voters and the other christian democrats rich voters if a redistributive tax policy is the only issue and if there are no incentive considerations then in equilibrium the party representing the poor will propose a tax rate of unity if however there are two issues tax policy and religion for instance then this is not generally the case the analysis shows that if a simple condition on the distribution of voter preferences holds then as the salience of the non economic issue increases the tax rate proposed by labour in equilibrium will fall possibly even to zero even though a majority of the population may have an ideal tax rate of unity 1998 elsevier science s a all rights reserved

the investment strategies for a dynamic supply chain under stochastic demands abstract a successful supply chain management scm should aim to maximize the net present value of joint profits along the supply chain however the volatile market conditions cause the future cash flows along the supply chain more difficult to anticipate to obtain higher supply chain value the supplier and the retailer should cooperatively determine the optimal entry time this paper proposes a two stage dynamic optimization model by using a real option approach and then performs the sensitivity analyses for the option value and the investment threshold the impacts of some critical factors including the growth rate and the volatility of demand shock sunk cost and relating operational costs cost rates fix costs holding costs of inventory and shipping costs are investigated

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

option valuation of claims on real assets the case of offshore petroleum leases this paper extends financial option theory by developing a methodology for the valuation of claims on a real asset an offshore petroleum lease several theoretical and practical problems not present in applying option pricing theory to financial assets are addressed most importantly we show the necessity of combining option pricing techniques with a model of equilibrium in the market for the underlying asset petroleum reserves the advantages of this approach over conventional discounted cash flow techniques are emphasized the methodological development provides important insights for both company behavior and government policy promising empirical results are reported

comparative politics and public finance we propose a model with micropolitical foundations to contrast different political regimes compared to a parliamentary regime the institutions of a presidential congressional regime produce fewer incentives for legislative cohesion but more separation of powers these differences are reflected in the size and composition of government spending a parliamentary regime has redistribution toward a majority less underprovision of public goods and more rents to politicians a presidential congressional regime has redistribution toward powerful minorities more underprovision of public goods but less rents to politicians the size of government is smaller under a presidential regime this last prediction is consistent with cross country data

the role of geography in financial and economic integration a comparative analysis of foreign direct investment trade and portfolio investment flows the objective of this paper is to examine the role of geography in explaining the patterns of financial and economic integration among both developed and developing countries using a gravity model we compare north north north south and south north fdi trade and portfolio investment flows to examine how geographical factors influence these bilateral flows the results indicate that the impact of geography variables on fdi and portfolio are similar to their effect on trade geography variables have a statistically significant effect both on fdi and portfolio investment but fdi is more sensitive to distance we interpret the negative effect of distance as the existence of information costs in financial flows also bilateral fdi trade and portfolio investment flows react to macroeconomic fundamentals in the same way however with different degrees of sensitivity there are significant differences between north north and north south flows our results find support for the argument that most fdi among industrial countries are horizontal whereas most fdi investment in developing countries is vertical the fact that the significance of geographical variables on financial flows still remained even after controlling for the macroeconomic fundamentals is in contrast with the standard capital market model the results can however be reconciled if geographical factors can proxy for information costs which may in turn explain why country portfolios are still home biased the significant effect of distance on financial flows may also explain how idiosyn cratic shocks are spread i e contagion to other countries in the same region ultimately the geographical location of a country may determine its economic and financial integration into the world economy

politicians decision making with re election concerns abstract we study the impact of elected officials re election concerns on their decisions on whether to undertake new projects the value of a project to a jurisdiction depends in part on its elected official s uncertain ability at providing some public goods our main result is that the elected official s willingness to pay for the project differs from voters willingness to pay if the incumbent official expects to lose win the election then she is willing to pay more less than the project s total value to voters we show how our analysis can be applied to bidding wars among jurisdictions for firms

globalization and capital taxation in consensus and majoritarian democracies this article contributes to the growing literature on the role that domestic political institutions play in mediating globalization pressures by arguing that the capital tax constraints arising from international economic integration are the most severe for countries with majoritarian political institutions in doing so the author solves a tax puzzle that challenges conventional thinking about how institutions condition the relationship between economic globalization and domestic politics he presents a formal game theoretic model to sharpen the basic logic of his argument and then tests some of the model s predictions empirically using both quantitative and qualitative evidence

globalization as galton s problem the missing link in the analysis of diffusion patterns in welfare state development most macro cross national studies in political science that analyze the impact of globalization on domestic policies do not sufficiently consider the meth odological consequences of diffusion processes or galton s problem as it is often referred to i argue that globalization is a form of diffusion therefore it requires a shift from an exclusively functional analysis which dominates in almost all estab lished comparative studies in the field to a diffusional analysis i assume that glob alization leads to a shift in focus on the part of political actors from domestic to international issues i test this hypothesis by examining social expenditure rates of sixteen highly developed welfare states the results indicate that globalization has become a highly influential factor since the late 1980s in contrast to the years before in addition to the actual results presented here the methodological approach of ana lyzing globalization as diffusion is relevant to other areas of comparative and inter national politics and may be a tool in future research

can foreign stock investors influence policymaking foreign portfolio stock investors fpsis often attach political criteria to their investment choices sometimes in the hope of pressuring policymakers in boycotted markets to adjust their policies

fiscal policy and the firm do low corporate tax rates attract multinational corporations the existing literature on the political economy of taxation explores how the mobility of firms affects the ability of governments to tax capital in this article the author tests the relationship

optimal timing of transmission line investments in the face of uncertain demand an option valuation approach abstract grid based electrification programmes involve irreversible transmission line investments that can be delayed by temporarily resorting to decentralized powet supply technologies in this context decision makers face the difficulty that the future evolution of demand and thus the returns from postponing the transmission line investment are uncertain this imposes an opportunity cost resembling the value of a financial call option therefore standard option valuation techniques can be applied to solve the problem of timing transmission line investments in the presence of stochastic demand it is shown analytically and in terms of numerical examples that demand uncertainty may provide a strong incentive to defer the extension of the grid beyond the date that would be optimal under deterministic conditions

firm size and foreign operations of multinationals the standard literature on multinationals emphasizes the importance of firm size in explaining foreign direct investment a typical statement for example by caves is that t he relation between direct investment and firm size with other factors held constant has been established statistically 1974 p 280 however descriptions of the role of firm size are often ambiguous as pointed out by hufbauer 1975 and swedenborg 1979 such descriptions do not make a clear distinction between the probability or likelihood that a firm would be a foreign investor and the extent of such investment or as expressed by swedenborg a firm s propensity to operate abroad the share of its production carried on outside its home country a study by horst 1972 which has become the basis for most statements about the importance of firm size dealt only with the probability that a firm would be a foreign investor or more specifically the probability that it would meet the criteria for being considered a multinational firm according to the definition used in the harvard studies including that of having a certain number of overseas operations cf vernon 197 1

internationalization and changes in tax policy in oecd countries the importance of domestic veto players this article examines the role that economic and political factors played in tax reform in organization for economic cooperation and development oecd countries from 1986 to 1990 some writers argue that economic integration forced states to reform their tax systems the authors findings indicate that economic openness had an indirect effect on the level of change in marginal tax rates the institutional structure of a country was most important countries that had only one veto player or only one institution or party whose approval was necessary for a bill to become law enacted more sweeping reform than states that had more than one veto player these results suggest that even when international or domestic economic factors might dictate a change in policy reform will not be as sweeping in countries in which agreement among several institutions and or parties is necessary

interdependence in comparative politics substance theory empirics substance interdependence is ubiquitous and often central across comparative politics indeed as the authors show first theoretically any situation involving externalities from one unit s actions on others implies interdependence positive or negative externalities induce negative or positive interdependence which spurs competitive races or free riding with corresponding early or late mover advantages and thus strategic rush to act or delay and inaction the authors show next how to model interdependent processes empirically how not doing so risks omitted variable biases favoring domestic and exogenous external accounts over interdependence but how doing so naively risks simultaneity biases with the opposite substantive implications they then discuss how to estimate properly specified interdependence models and finally how to interpret and present estimated spatio temporally dynamic effects response paths and long run steady states with associated standard errors they illustrate by replicating a not

watchfully waiting medical intervention as an optimal investment decision abstract watchfully waiting involves monitoring a patient s health state over time and deciding whether to undertake a medical intervention or to postpone it and continue observing the patient in this paper we consider the timing of medical intervention as an optimal stopping problem the development of the patient s health state in the absence of intervention follows a stochastic process geometric brownian motion spontaneous recovery occurs in case the absorbing state of good health is reached we determine optimal threshold values for initiating the intervention and derive comparative statics results with respect to the model parameters in particular an increase in the degree of uncertainty over the patient s development in most cases makes waiting more attractive however this may not hold if the patient s health state has a tendency to improve the model can be extended to allow for risk aversion and for sudden poisson type shocks to the patient s health state

second mover advantages in the strategic adoption of new technology under uncertainty abstract this paper introduces technological uncertainty into a timing game of new technology adoption it is shown that the timing neither necessarily involves first mover advantages in precommitment equilibria reinganum review of economic studies xlviii 1981 395 405 nor rent equalization due to the threat of preemption fudenberg and tirole review of economic studies lii 1985 383 401 rather there may be second mover advantages because of informational spillovers furthermore the model predicts that the equilibrium payoffs will typically be discontinuous and non monotonic in the probability that the new technology is profitable a welfare analysis reveals several market failures and suggests that policy intervention should adequately depend on the nature of uncertainty and the rate of technological progress

optimal timing of technology adoption abstract in a dynamic programming framework this paper investigates the optimal timing of technology adoption by a competitive firm when technology choice is irreversible and the firm faces a stochastic innovation process with uncertainties about both the speed of the arrival and the degree of improvement of new technologies a numerical example illustrates how the optimal timing decision is affected by changes in parameter values reflecting market conditions the firm s initial technological attributes and the characteristics of the stochastic innovation process some of these effects turn out to be in sharp contrast to common intuition contrasting the optimal decision rule derived here with the rule obtained under the net present value shows that the former implies a slower pace of adoption than implied by the latter the optimal decision rule is generalized for the case of multiple technology switches and it is shown that for all the switching decisions except the last one the optimal rule satisfies the net present value criterion

irreversible investment uncertainty and ambiguity the case of bioenergy sector we analyze production and investment decisions of an agent in industrial activities that are characterized by two forms of uncertainty demand uncertainty in terms of number of buyers and competitive effect uncertainty in terms of other energy resource we apply our model on the bioenergy industries we compare the case of an ambiguity neutral agent with that of an ambiguity averse agent we show that the investment decision of an agent depends on the effects of both the capital investment and the level of production on the cost and the uncertainty the agent is confronted with moreover we find that ambiguity aversion tends to decrease the agent s optimal levels of production and investment our numerical analysis of the french case illustrates the different effects associated with demand uncertainty and competitive effect uncertainty

consumption driven market emergence new market development is well theorized from a firm centered perspective but research has paid scant attention to the emergence of markets from consumption activity the exceptions conceptualize market emergence as a product of consumer struggle against prevailing market logics this study develops a model of consumption driven market emergence in harmony with existing market offerings using ethnographic methods and actor network theory the authors chronicle the emergence of a new market within the motorcycle industry that develops with neither active participation nor interference from mainstream industry players findings reveal a process of multiple translations wherein consumers mobilize human and nonhuman actors to co constitute products practices and infrastructures these drive the growth of interlinked communities of practice which ultimately are translated into a fully functioning market the study highlights the roles of distributed innovation and diffusion embedded entrepreneurship and market catalysts in processes of market change and development

a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence this paper presents a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence political equilibrium depends on the efficiency of each group in producing pressure the effect of additional pressure on their influence the number of persons in different groups and the deadweight cost of taxes and subsidies an increase in deadweight costs discourages pressure by subsidized groups and encourages pressure by taxpayers this analysis unifies the view that governments correct market failures with the view that they favor the politically powerful both are produced by the competition for political favors

fdi in space spatial autoregressive relationships in foreign direct investment abstract there are a number of theoretical reasons why foreign direct investment fdi into a host country may depend on the fdi in proximate countries such spatial interdependence has been largely ignored by the empirical fdi literature with only a couple recent papers accounting for such issues in their estimation this paper conducts a general examination of spatial interactions in empirical fdi models using data on us outbound fdi activity we find that estimated relationships of traditional determinants of fdi are surprisingly robust to inclusion of terms to capture spatial interdependence even though such interdependence is estimated to be significant however we find that both the traditional determinants of fdi and the estimated spatial interdependence are quite sensitive to the sample of countries one examines

on the diffusion of new technology a game theoretic approach this paper is an attempt at a rigorous albeit not exceedingly general analysis of the diffusion of new technology in particular consider an industry composed of two firms each using the current best practice technology the firms are assumed to be operating at nash equilibrium output levels generating a market price given demand and profit allocations when a cost reducing innovation is announced each firm must determine when if ever to adopt it based in part upon the discounted cost of implementing the new technology and in part upon the behavior of the rival firm if either firm adopts before the other it can expect to make substantial profits at the expense of the other firm on the other hand the discounted sum of purchase price and adjustment costs may decline with the lengthening of the adjustment period as various quasi fixed factors become more easily variable therefore although waiting costs the firm more in terms of foregone profits it may save money on the cost of purchasing the new technology thus the firm must weigh the costs and benefits of delaying adoption as well as take account of its rival s strategic behavior

play at any cost how cosplayers produce and sustain their ludic communal consumption experiences communal consumption is often described as inherently playful with previous research mainly focusing on successful ludic communal experiences and largely disregarding its potential pitfalls moreover the marketer is usually seen as the primary facilitator of ludic experiences which has marginalized the role of the consumer this article explores how consumers produce and sustain ludic consumption community experiences in the face of growing instrumental costs it assumes a practice theory lens and is based on an ethnographic inquiry into cosplay which is a time and resource intensive form of pop culture masquerade and craft consumption prolonged engagement in the cosplay community leads to growing emotional material temporal and competence related costs which hinder playful experiences consumers practice modularization reinforcement and collaboration to overcome these costs and maintain the important ludic sensations that motivate communal engagements

preemption and rent equalization in the adoption of new technology we study the adoption of a new technology to illustrate the effects of preemption in games of timing we show that the threat of preemption equalizes rents in a duopoly but that this result does not extend to the general oligopoly game if the gain to preemption is sufficiently small then the optimal symmetric outcome which involves late adoption is an equilibrium this contrasts with reinganum s result that in precommitment equilibria there must be diffusion we develop a new and richer formalism for modeling games of timing which permits a continuoustime representation of the limit of discrete time mixed strategy equilibria

investments of uncertain cost abstract this paper examines irreversible investment decisions when projects take time to complete and are subject to two types of cost uncertainty the first is technical uncertainty i e uncertainty over the physical difficulty of completing a project which is only resolved as the investment proceeds the second is input cost uncertainty i e uncertainty over the prices of construction inputs or over government regulations affecting construction costs which is external to the firm these two types of uncertainty have very different effects on the investment decision a simple investment rule is derived that maximizes firm value and is used to analyze the decision to start or continue building a nuclear power plant during the 1980s

global networks and domestic policy convergence a network explanation of policy changes national economies are embedded in complex networks such as trade capital flows and intergovernmental organizations igo s these globalization forces impose differential impacts on national economies depending on a country s network positions this article addresses the policy convergence divergence debate by focusing on how networks at the international level affect domestic fiscal monetary and regulatory policies the author presents two hypotheses first similarity in network positions induces convergence in domestic economic policies as a result of peer competitive pressure second proximity in network positions facilitates policy learning and emulation which result in policy convergence the empirical analysis applies a latent space model for relational dyadic data and indicates that position similarity in the network of exports induces convergence in fiscal and regulatory policies position similarity in the network of transnational portfolio investments induces convergence in fiscal policies and position proximity in igo networks is consistently associated with policy convergence in fiscal monetary and regulatory policies

globalization taxation and burden shifting in latin america most researchers interested in the relationship between global markets and public policy focus on advanced industrial democracies in contrast we examine competing hypotheses as to globalization s effect on governments by expanding the scope of the discussion to include developing nations more specifically we investigate the relationship between international market integration and the evolving burden of taxation on capital as well as the subsequent response of markets to shifts in tax policy in latin america since the late 1970s consistent with our theoretical expectations we find that global market forces are more constraining vis a vis tax policy in latin america than in the world s wealthiest nations despite these market based pressures however national politics continue to influence tax policy in latin america in a manner consistent with findings on advanced industrial democracies as such developing nations continue to have some room to manipulate policy though within the context of a more strictly neoliberal context than their counterparts in advanced industrial democracies

the origins of financial openness a study of current and capital account liberalization theory we assess the determinants of the national regulation of international finance or the comparative degree of national financial openness or closure hypotheses partisanship interacts with a nation s factor endowments to account in part for different international financial policies by governments of the same partisan hue methods we offer a quantitative measure of international financial openness or current and capital account regulation for 21 member countries of the organization for economic cooperation and development for 1950 88 we use regression analysis employing panel corrected standard errors to discover the determinants of financial openness results our main finding is that political partisanship substantially explains openness but does so in complex ways differences in both political institutional arrangements and types of political economy also account for part of the differences in international financial regulation

international investment location decisions abstract in international location tournaments governments compete for foreign investment with tax and other short run incentives such tournaments can be won if agglomeration economies are sufficiently powerful to overcome investors desire to spread investments as a hedge against risk we focus on manufacturing investments by u s multinationals in the 1980s our econometric results suggest that agglomeration economies are indeed the dominant influence on investor calculations paradoxically short run incentives have limited apparent impact on location choice we conclude that high cost tournament play is unnecessary for countries with good infrastructure development specialized input suppliers and an expanding domestic market

should countries control international profit shifting we present a fiscal competition model with two policy instruments the level of corporate taxation and the tightness of control of profit shifting by multinational firms mnf we show that a country may optimally decide not to monitor the mnf for two reasons firstly this country becomes an attractive location for mnf activity despite a high corporate tax secondly as the profits of the mnf become mobile the focus of tax competition is shifted taxation then influences both an mnf s location and the place where it declares its profits

selling sharing and everything in between the hybrid economies of collaborative networks recent consumer research has examined contexts where market based exchange gift giving sharing and other modes of exchange occur simultaneously and obey several intersecting logics but consumer research has not conceptualized these so called hybrid economic forms nor explained how these hybrids are shaped and sustained using ethnographic and netnographic data from the collaborative network of geocaching this study explains the emergence of hybrid economies performativity theory is mobilized to demonstrate that the hybrid status of these economies is constantly under threat of destabilization by the struggle between competing performativities of market and nonmarket modes of exchange despite latent tension between competing performativities the hybrid economy is sustained through consumer producer engagements in collaborative consumption and production the creation of zones of indeterminacy and the enactment of tournaments of value that dissipate controversies around hybrid transactions implications are drawn for consumer research on the interplay between market and nonmarket economies

voting in open economies the electoral consequences of globalization what are the electoral consequences of global market integration although recent discussions of politics and markets have much to say on globalization s implications for policy outcomes the impact of market integration on representative democracy has received scant attention this article addresses this omission we extend the globalization literature to develop two competing hypotheses regarding the influence of open economies on electoral accountability predictions are tested using a new data set covering elections from 75 countries over 27 years results support a government constraint hypothesis exposure to the world economy weakens connections between economic performance and support for political incumbents by redirecting concerns from the policy implications of globalization and toward its electoral consequences findings highlight the influence of voter perceptions and of vote seeking politicians in the politics of globalization