tax structure and corruption cross country evidence one common feature of the current literature on corruption especially the empirical contributions to it is the emphasis on the exogenous determinants of corruption which are generally beyond the direct control of governments to date little is known about how the design of government policy potentially affects the level of corruption in a country even though there is growing recognition that the design and administration of tax and spending policies play important roles in promoting or discouraging corrupt practices using a large sample of countries over the 1995 2009 period this paper fills the gap by conducting the first analysis in the literature to examine the significance of the tax structure as measured by both tax mix and tax complexity in determining corruption our results suggest the following 1 countries relying more heavily on direct taxes tend to exhibit less corruption than countries that rely more heavily on indirect taxes and 2 countries with more complex tax systems tend to be more corrupt than countries with less complex tax systems these results are robust across alternative measures of corruption and tax structure and alternative estimations with and without correcting the potential endogeneity issue of the tax structure variables

corporate social responsibility for supply chain management a literature review and bibliometric analysis corporate social responsibility csr in supply chain management scm has gained an increasing research attention in recent years extant studies have discussed stakeholder interests performance evaluation ethical sourcing and sustainable production the purpose of this paper is to develop a systematic study quantitatively depicting the knowledge structure and the intellectual progress of csr for scm this research adopts bibliometric analysis in conjunction with network analysis to systematically evaluate the csr related publications for scm the analysis involves 628 peer reviewed articles identified with careful selection of influential work data analytic techniques including citation analysis co citation analysis and co word analysis are used key findings for researchers include 1 an analytical discussion of the five sub fields that constitute the intellectual structure of csr for scm 2 theoretical and conceptual research significantly dominate in this field 3 the topics of sustainable development and economic and social effects are more frequently discussed among scholars 4 key research gaps include lacking of practical and normative modeling research and considering from the supplier perspectives in emerging economies the findings suggest that future research would emerge a greater depth of practical and modeling analysis to enrich the theories

channel coordination and profit distribution in a social responsible three layer supply chain abstract this paper analyzes coordination of a manufacturer distributer retailer supply chain where the manufacturer exhibits corporate social responsibility csr in manufacturer stackelberg game setting the paper proposes a contract bargaining process to resolve channel conflict and to distribute surplus profit among the channel members the contract bargaining process consists of two wholesale price discount nash bargaining one between the distributer and the retailer based on the outcome of that between the distributer and the manufacturer although the contract bargaining process cuts out channel conflict and distributes surplus profit the wholesale prices are quite different from those of a pure profit maximizing supply chain the wholesale price of the manufacturer is less than its marginal production cost above a threshold of csr even it is negative for the manufacturer s heavy csr practice so the manufacturer s profit may be negative the behavior of the wholesale price of the distributer is same as that of the manufacturer but for higher threshold of csr

asymmetric international minimum quality standards and vertical differentiation this paper develops a two country model of a vertically differentiated duopoly that spans two countries which are not integrated without additional costs equilibrium qualities prices profits and consumer s surplus are compared when 1 minimum quality standards are identical and 2 standards differ across countries both markets turn out to be connected by the quality choices of the two firms both firms prices in the two countries and their profits are lower whereas consumer s surplus and the two offered qualities are higher in both countries if no firm is forced out of the country s market with the more demanding minimum quality standard copyright 1995 by blackwell publishing ltd

tax complexity and fiscal illusion by using the hirschman herfindahl index hhc the traditional approach to the tax complexity hypothesis introduces a restriction into the fiscal illusion model which has no theoretical foundation we analyse the existing framework of the tax complexity hypothesis in detail and propose to capture this complexity through a hannah and kay index we extend the theoretical framework by considering the expected return on investment in information

revisiting the effects of regional trade agreements on trade flows with proper specification of the gravity model this paper uses a gravity model to assess ex post regional trade agreements the model includes 130 countries and is estimated with panel data over the period 1962 1996 the introduction of the correct number of dummy variables allows for identification of vinerian trade creation and trade diversion effects while the estimation method takes into account the unobservable characteristics of each pairs of trade partner countries the endogeneity of some of the explanatory variables as well as a potential selection bias in contrast to previous estimates results show that regional agreements have generated a significant increase in trade between members often at the expense of the rest of the world

spatial price equilibrium with information asymmetry in quality and minimum quality standards abstract a spatial price equilibrium model with information asymmetry in quality is developed in both static and dynamic versions producers at the supply markets are aware of the quality of their products whereas consumers located at the demand markets are aware only of the average quality of the products that are shipped to their demand markets minimum quality standards are also captured in order to assess the impacts of such policy interventions we establish qualitative results in the form of existence uniqueness and stability analysis an algorithm is proposed along with a convergence proof it is then utilized to compute solutions to a spectrum of spatial price equilibrium numerical examples in order to explore the impacts of information asymmetry under different scenarios the numerical examples which are of quite general functional forms reveal that as the number of supply markets increases the anonymizing effect leads to a decrease in the average quality on the other hand as the number of demand markets increases the pressure to improve quality increases and the average quality increases finally we demonstrate that after the imposition of minimum quality standards the average quality at the demand markets increases and the prices also increase

insecurity and the pattern of trade an empirical investigation corruption and imperfect contract enforcement dramatically reduce international trade this paper estimates the reduction using a structural model of import demand in which insecurity acts as a hidden tax on trade we find that inadequate institutions constrain trade as much as tariffs do we also find that omission of indices of institutional quality biases the estimates of typical gravity models obscuring a negative relationship between per capita income and the share of total expenditure devoted to traded goods finally we argue that cross country variation in the effectiveness of institutions and the consequent variation in the prices of traded goods offer a simple explanation for the stylized fact that high income capital abundant countries trade disproportionately with each other

fiscal illusion at the local level empirical evidence for the flemish municipalities fiscal illusion refers to a systematically biased perception of fiscal parameters due to demand side error ignorance or supply side abusive behaviour as such it is a component of a more general tax choice framework

pollution accumulation and abatement policy in a supply chain abstract this paper seeks to determine how the double marginalization phenomenon affects the tradeoff between polluting emissions and abatement activities related to pollution accumulation in a supply chain composed of one manufacturer and one retailer the environmental consequence of this inefficiency which emerges in a non cooperative vertical setting governed by a single parameter contract is overlooked in the literature on pollution control in the setup of a two stage game we investigate the impact of double marginalization for non cooperative equilibrium to check whether there are differences between dynamic and strategic effects of double marginalization on pollution accumulation both the open loop and feedback nash equilibria are derived over a finite time horizon with the cooperative solution as a benchmark

effective interim collaboration how firms minimize transaction costs and maximise transaction value this study of automotive transaction relationships in the u s a and japan offers abta which indicate that transaction costs do not necessarily increase with an increase in reiation specijk investments we empirically examine the conditions under which transactors can simultaneously achieve the twin benejits of high asset specificity and low transaction costs this is possible because the dtfferent safeguards which can be employed to control opportunism have different set up costs and result in different transaction costs over dl erent time horizons we examine in detail the ractices of javanese firms which result in effective inteq n collaboration 1997 by john wiley sons ltd

rational incompatibility with international product standards abstract international product standardization enables traditional price based competition but the existence of redesign costs or network effects creates market frictions that diminish the incentive to standardize if there already exists a different technology in an established market this leads to multi attribute competition between products and will generally reduce trade flows not only do incumbent firms using a different technology have an incentive to deviate from an international standard but a host country government concerned for its consumers welfare has no incentive to enforce the international standard and may even value deviation from the international standard through technical barriers to trade

performance evaluation and a flow allocation decision model for a sustainable supply chain of an apparel industry abstract there is a growing concern that business enterprises and their supply chains focus primarily on economic activities and ignore their impact on the environment and society this paper aims to help decision makers managers and practitioners to achieve economic growth societal development and environmental protection by developing sustainable supply chain performance measures and proposes a partner selection and flow allocation decision making model survey data from 278 business organizations from the indian apparel industry supply chain network were used and an integrated method of structural equation modeling fuzzy analytical hierarchy process and fuzzy multi objective linear programming was applied to the proposed model the results of the structural equation modeling analysis indicate that the survey respondents considered sustainable production performance to be of prime importance which thus indicates its significance in developing a sustainable supply chain for the apparel industry to illustrate the use of the proposed model for partner selection and flow allocation decision making real time data from an apparel manufacturer are presented optimal results were obtained for two strategies sustainability and cost saving to show a cost benefit trade off when developing a sustainable supply chain using comparative performance a decision maker can choose an appropriate strategy based on cost benefit analysis of the presented trade offs

monopolistic competition and international trade reconsidering the evidence we test some propositions about international trade flows that are derived from models of monopolistic competition developed by elhanan helpman and paul krugman we investigate whether the volume of trade between oecd countries is consistent with the predictions of a model in which all trade is intraindustry trade in differentiated products we then repeat the test with non oecd countries we also investigate whether the share of intraindustry trade is consistent with a more general theoretical model in which some but not all trade is intraindustry trade our results lead us to question the apparent empirical success of these models

a supply chain network economic model with time based competition abstract this paper presents an integrated model for time cost competition between supply chains with heterogeneous customers the firms in our model can offer various time options for their production service to time sensitive customers this gives rise of a new concept of time based supply chain which we call t chain to be the basic element in the competition and extends the inter supply chain competition to a new dimension of time assuming the customers are heterogeneous in time cost bi criteria decision making we integrate the discrete choice theory into supply chain network competition and formulate the equilibrium conditions as a multinomial logit based variational inequality problem numerical examples are presented for model illustration and managerial insights such as profit maximization for a firm who participates in this supply chain network

dynamics of supply chain networks with corporate social responsibility through integrated environmental decision making in this paper we develop a dynamic framework for the modeling and analysis of supply chain networks with corporate social responsibility through integrated environmental decision making through a multilevel supply chain network we model the multicriteria decision making behavior of the various decision makers manufacturers retailers and consumers which includes the maximization of profit the minimization of emission waste and the minimization of risk we explore the dynamic evolution of the product flows the associated product prices as well as the levels of social responsibility activities on the network until an equilibrium pattern is achieved we provide some qualitative properties of the dynamic trajectories under suitable assumptions and propose a discrete time algorithm which is then applied to track the evolution of the levels of social responsibility activities product flows and prices over time we illustrate the model and computational procedure with several numerical examples

relationships among circumstance pressure green technology selection and firm performance in their quest for greater sustainability firms need to deal with many variables that ultimately determine the selection of green technologies previous studies of the possible link between the application of green technology and firm performance have generally produced mixed results similarly studies of the relationship between environmentally friendly strategies and firm performance have also been inconclusive based on an extensive empirical study with 533 respondents from 98 firms in the chinese manufacturing industry we try to identify the essential factors and test the links among variables in the decision making process for green technology selection we use an integrated structure equation model to test the complexity of a firm s technology adoption the relationships among the various variables are tested based on empirical data from our questionnaire more specifically we measure the influences on green technology selection imposed by task oriented circumstances direct stakeholders market environment financial and social dynamics and macro circumstances legislation social and technological development phases etc the results show significant relationships between green technology selection and certain task oriented circumstances and macro circumstances which may facilitate proper action on the part of firms with regard to green practices based on our findings we present some managerial implications and insights that might be useful for adopters of green technologies and enhance environmental and overall performance we also discuss the limitations of our methodology at the end of the paper

the impact of iso 9000 diffusion on trade and fdi a new institutional analysis the effects of iso 9000 diffusion on trade and foreign direct investment fdi have gone understudied we employ panel data reported by oecd nations over the 1995 2002 period to estimate the impact of iso adoptions on country pair economic relations we find iso diffusion to have no effect in developed nations but to positively pull fdi i e enhancing inward fdi and positively push trade i e enhancing exports in developing nations

driving forces for standardization at standardization development organizations this paper investigates sector specific driving forces for the standardization activities at national standardization organizations in the first part theoretical hypotheses concerning sector specific standardization are derived the empirical test is performed by a two step procedure first based on 19 sectors these hypotheses are tested empirically for germany the results show that rd additionally intellectual property rights play an important role furthermore standardization increases with the concentration of the enterprises up to a certain threshold where standardization activities decline again finally export intensive sectors tend to standardize more secondly because of the small data base these hypotheses are empirically tested in a pool model an international cross section approach based on 20 sectors and seven countries these results are generally in concordance with the findings of germany after a summary of the results recommendati

exploring the effects of social responsibility on coordination and profit division in a supply chain abstract this paper explores channel coordination and profit division in a socially responsible manufacturer retailer chain through sub game perfect equilibrium and extended alternative offer bargaining the channel members jointly intend to swell stakeholder s welfare by exhibiting corporate social responsibility csr in a proportion it is found that i the channel s non profit maximizing motive through csr practice generates higher profit margin than would the profit maximizing objective ii the manufacturer s wholesale price is below its marginal cost or negative above some thresholds of csr and csr sharing fraction iii the csr and csr sharing fractions are key determining factors for the pure profits of the channel members because variations in choosing these two factors can lead to increment or decrement even negative pure profits on the other hand for the csr manufacturer the wholesale price is less than the marginal cost for csr practice above a threshold and is negative for heavy csr practice though always larger than the marginal cost for the csr retailer so the manufacturer s pure profit may be negative moreover a channel member always prefers the other s csr practice thus in cooperative environment equitable share of csr may be a compromise solution

socially responsible investing in the united states socially responsible investing sri has emerged in recent years as a dynamic and quickly growing segment of the u s financial services industry involving over 2 trillion in professionally managed assets its conceptual origins can be found in the early history of civilization with it s modern roots in the 1960s this paper provides an overview of the breadth and depth of the concept and practice of socially and environmentally responsible investing describes the investment strategies that together define sri as currently practiced in the u s offers several observations about some of the factors fueling its dramatic growth and presents data showing that investors who choose to invest in a socially and environmentally responsible manner can do so without giving up investment returns sri has matured to a point where virtually any investment need can be met through portfolio design that integrates an investor s personal values institutional mission and or social priorities the socially responsible investment industry in the unitedstates is a young phenomenon even referring to it as an industry ten years ago may have been a bit of a stretch while it has grown dramatically in recent years it is an area of work of study and of practical application that continues to evolve in many significant ways one intriguing example of the ongoing development of the field can be found in the analysis of the language used to describe it the terms social investing socially responsible investing ethical investing socially aware investing socially conscious investing green investing values based investing and mission based or mission related investing all refer to the same general process and are often used interchangeably

individual firm and market dynamics of csr activities this paper investigates how firms should plan corporate social responsibility short csr this dynamic analysis starts with a firm s intertemporal optimization problem and proceeds to analyze interactions with other firms which are crucial if csr is profitable for firm a then it is most likely also profitable for competitors b and c and these simultaneous decisions affect the gain each would achieve from trying to advance its own position we find that multiple equilibria exist irrespective of whether interactions with other firms are taken into account interactions can eliminate or create additional steady states and can lead to a situation in which history is insufficient to determine the long run outcome among multiple steady states so that coordination is beneficial

multiperiod effects of corporate social responsibility on supply chain networks transaction costs emissions and risk abstract this paper develops a framework for the analysis of the optimal levels of corporate social responsibility csr activities in a multiperiod supply chain network consisting of manufacturers retailers and consumers manufacturers and retailers determine their production quantities transaction quantities and the amount of social responsibility activities they want to pursue that maximize net return minimize emission and minimize risk over the planning horizon we investigate the interplay of the heterogeneous decision makers and compute the equilibrium pattern of product outputs transactions prices and levels of social responsibility activities the paper provides insights concerning the optimal allocation of resources to csr activities when considering a multiperiod time frame

standardization policy and international trade abstract we analyze governments incentives to recognize foreign standards when there are potentially both network effects and conversion costs when government policy is limited to either recognizing all foreign standards or not recognizing any foreign standard recognition is always the outcome we then consider a setting in which countries can form standardization unions when conversion costs are relatively large two countries can increase their welfare by forming a standardization union that does not recognize the standard of the third nonmember country when network effects are significant all countries mutually recognize all standards and have no incentives to form standardization unions

international standards and international trade empirical evidence from iso 9000 diffusion abstract empirical scholarship on the standards trade relationship has been held up due to methodological challenges measurement varied effects and endogeneity considering the trade effects of one particular standard iso 9000 we surmount methodological challenges by measuring standardization via national penetration of iso 9000 allowing standardization to manifest via multiple quality signaling information compliance cost and common language channels and using instrumental variable multilateral resistance and panel data techniques to overcome endogeneity we find evidence of common language and quality signaling augmenting country pair trade yet iso rich nations benefit the most from standardization while iso poor nations find iso 9000 to represent a trade barrier due to compliance cost effects

the corporate social performance financial performance link strategic managers are consistently faced with the decision of how to allocate scarce corporate resources in an environment that is placing more and more pressures on them recent scholarship in strategic management suggests that many of these pressures come directly from sources associated with social issues in management rather than traditional arenas of strategic management using a greatly improved source of data on corporate social performance this paper reports the results of a rigorous study of the empirical linkages between financial and social performance corporate social performance csp is found to be positively associated with prior financial performance supporting the theory that slack resource availability and csp are positively related csp is also found to be positively associated with future financial performance supporting the theory that good management and csp are positively related 1997 by john wiley sons ltd