productive energy use and economic growth energy physical and human capital relationships abstract ecological and biophysical economists and historians of economics consider that availability of energy inputs has played a key role in driving economic growth in industrialized and emerging economies nevertheless being very sensitive to structural characteristics or stages of economic development the strength of this link differs among countries this study analyzes the role of energy in economic growth from a geographical standpoint by estimating an aggregate translog production function with human and physical capital and productive energy use as production factors within a growth framework panel data of 38 major countries for the period from 1995 to 2007 were used the strength of the link between energy and growth is analyzed for the whole sample and the following relevant country groups oecd bric nafta east asian east european and eu15 countries obtained results show that the calculated productivity elasticities with respect to energy use are positive for all country groups bric countries have higher elasticities around 0 37 and eu15 countries have lower elasticities around 0 12 weak substitutability relationships between energy and capital are observed for all groups except for bric and east european countries which show complementarity relationships

innovation organizational capabilities and the born global firm we investigate born global firms as early adopters of internationalization that is companies that expand into foreign markets and exhibit international business prowess and superior performance from or near their founding our explication highlights the critical role of innovative culture as well as knowledge and capabilities in this unique breed of international entrepreneurial firm case studies are analyzed to better understand the early internationalization phenomenon and reveal key orientations and strategies that engender international success among these innovative firms case findings are then validated in a survey based study despite the scarce resources typical of young firms our findings reveal that born global firms leverage a distinctive mix of orientations and strategies that allow them to succeed in diverse international markets findings have important implications for the internationalization of contemporary firms

adaptive economic growth this paper develops an evolutionary theory of adaptive growth understood as a product of structural change and economic self transformation based upon processes that are closely connected with but not reducible to the growth of knowledge the dominant connecting theme is enterprise the innovative variations it generates and the multiple connections between investment innovation demand and structural transformation in the market process the paper explores the dependence of macroeconomic productivity growth on the diversity of technical progress functions and income elasticities of demand at the industry level and the resolution of this diversity into patterns of economic change through market processes it is shown how industry growth rates are constrained by higher order processes of emergence that convert an ensemble of industry growth rates into an aggregate rate of growth the growth of productivity output and employment are determined mutually and endogenously and their values depend on the variation in the primary causal influences in the system

borrowing constraints human capital accumulation and growth abstract borrowing constraints increase aggregate savings and therefore may increase growth this paper argues however that by reducing human capital accumulation borrowing constraints also have negative effects on growth these effects are discussed in an overlapping generations model with endogenous growth empirical evidence for oecd and developing countries lend support to the main predictions of the model

modeling the co evolution of national industries and institutions important contributions within the realms of industrial dynamics and evolutionary economic theory have shown the need to explore the sources of industrial leadership in high tech industries several of these studies suggest that the co evolution between national industries and certain supporting institutions could play a fundamental role as a source of competitive advantage although an analysis of these processes still poses significant formal and theoretical challenges in this article we draw on previous contributions to formal evolutionary theorizing in order to build up a co evolution model suitable for the dynamic analysis of industrial leadership this model involves national firms competing on a worldwide level in a science based industry and co evolving with their respective national university systems certain national firms may influence university funding by institutional shaping while national university systems crucially affect the competitive advantage of said firms in the global market the model highlights important mechanisms through which institutional technological and market interrelated factors determine the dynamics of industrial leadership and eventually the emergence of industrial leadership shifts some of the implications regarding policy and future research on economic development follow

industrialization under perfect foresight a world economy with a continuum of countries abstract a dynamic model of international trade with a continuum of countries is presented the terms of trade path each country takes as given are endogenous in the model countries differ by the rate of time preference and have populations of overlapping generations of labor industrialization is modeled as the reallocation of labor to the sector with external increasing returns the process of which is gradual due to a demographic constraint in a perfect foresight equilibrium countries with lower time preference industrialize and autarky policy is not effective for industrialization orbits may exist for countries with positive time preference journal of economic literature classification numbers d90 f10 f43 o14 o40

a theory of international new ventures a decade of research oviatt and mcdougall s jibs article identified and defined international new ventures invs and their prominent role in the global marketplace the article spurred worldwide interest in invs by raising questions about the validity and efficacy of existing theory especially about the uppsala process model of internationalization the article also laid an important theoretical foundation for research into international entrepreneurship ie where younger and wellestablished companies use their entrepreneurial activities to create value as they internationalize their operations this paper reviews oviatt and mcdougall s original propositions highlighting their important contributions to the field the paper also highlights the progress made in research using oviatt and mcdougall s framework the major debates that persist about the nature and role of invs the source of their competitive advantages and the key issues to be explored in future research

capital income taxation and long run growth new perspectives abstract we study the effects of capital income taxation on long run growth in an endogenous growth framework with two distinguishing features endogenous population and international capital mobility endogenizing population growth introduces a new channel for taxes to affect economic growth and enables us to discriminate the effects of taxes on total versus per capita income growth allowing for capital mobility in the open economy we show how the effects of taxes on population growth and income growth across countries will vary in specific ways depending on the international income tax regimes and the relative preference bias of people towards the quantity and quality of their children the numerical results based on our calibrated model for the g 7 nations also indicate that although the effects of liberalizing capital flows on long run growth may not be very sizable the growth effects of changes in capital income tax rates can be tremendously magnified by cross border capital flows and cross border spillovers of policy effects

internationalisation conceptualising an entrepreneurial process of behaviour in time this paper presents a three stage process of conceptual development in response to the call for a unifying direction for research in the emergent field of international entrepreneurship drawing on classic approaches to internationalisation and importing insight from entrepreneurship as a separate and distinct field of study the paper develops three potential models of internationalisation as a time based process of entrepreneurial behaviour the models evolve from the simple through general to precise levels of conceptualisation research implications are discussed

beyond hofstede and globe improving the quality of cross cultural research journal of international business studies 2010 41 1259 1274 doi 10 1057 jibs 2010 41 overview of 41 8 hofstede and globe in cross cultural research while hofstede s work was not the first systematic study on crossnational cultures his seminal book culture s consequences international differences in work related values 1980 succeeded in putting cross cultural analysis at the forefront of international business ib research in a later paper he boldly asserted that the business of international business is culture 1994 1 despite the criticisms that have been voiced against his work see mcsweeney 2002 oyserman coon kemmelmeier 2002 hofstede s influence on the fields of ib and management is undeniable according to harzing s publish or perish citation index as of june 2010 there were over 54 000 citations to his work this is a remarkable record that attests to first the growing popularity of cross cultural research in light of continued internationalization of the world economy and second hofstede s personal impact on scholarly research this jibs issue brings together 10 articles on culture and ib all of which were submitted to the editorial team led by jibs editorin chief lorraine eden while the articles were independently submitted through the regular double blind reviewing process the decision to join them in one collection creates in effect a special issue on culture in international business research which the jibs editors hope will be widely read and cited by ib scholars in general terms the papers in this collection fall into one of two categories 1 articles and commentaries about conceptual and methodological issues associated with hofstede s oeuvre vs the global leadership and organizational behavior effectiveness globe project s cultural dimensions and 2 articles and perspectives that use culture and or cultural dimensions as well as the operational measurement thereof to explain differences in behavior and practices across countries the common feature of all these scholarly pieces is that they challenge particular assumptions often made too easily in conventional cross cultural research the first paper in this collection is a perspective written by franke and richey that cautions against questionable generalizations from small numbers of countries in international business research using statistical analysis to support their assertion franke and richey argue that in order to draw credible generalizations in ib a minimum of 7 10 countries must be used this is an important message researchers should never formulate strong conclusions about the impact of cultural dimensions on journal of international business studies 2010 41 1259 1274 2010 academy of international business all rights reserved 0047 2506

uniqueness and indeterminacy on the dynamics of endogenous growth abstract in this paper we study the dynamics of endogenous growth both in the model of lucas and in a generalization that incorporates a labor leisure choice we characterize the regions of the parameter space that give rise to unique equilibria as well as the regions that yield a continuum of equilibria with positive growth rates we find that such multiple equilibria exist for empirically very plausible parameters in particular when the lucas model is modified to incorporate endogenous labor journal of economic literature numbers e00 e3 o40

trends in intergenerational income mobility previous studies of recent u s trends in intergenerational income mobility have produced widely varying results partly because of large sampling errors by making more efficient use of the available information in the panel study of income dynamics we generate more reliable estimates of the recent time series variation in intergenerational mobility our results which pertain to the cohorts born between 1952 and 1975 do not reveal major changes in intergenerational mobility

seeking commonalities or avoiding differences re conceptualizing distance and its effects on internationalization decisions past research established distance s key influence on internationalization however theoretical issues methodological challenges and inconsistent results hinder scholarship on why distance plays such an influential role to address these problems we draw from cognitive research on similarity comparisons to re conceptualize distance and test a model of internationalization decisions analyzing the verbal protocols of executives considering a series of internationalization opportunities we demonstrate that over and above objective distance indicators considerations that reduce distance commonalities and considerations that augment distance differences have distinct effects on decisions of where when and how to internationalize as such our study contributes new insights for understanding the nature and effects of distance across different dimensions of distance and internationalization decisions moreover internationalization theories have come to emphasize different theoretical rationales for explaining the influential role of distance on different decisions by integrating these rationales together with the notion that distance reducing commonalities and distance augmenting differences have distinct implications for internationalization decisions we introduce the notion that it is not only the addition of distance considerations that matters but also the directionality of such changes doing so our study points to new theoretical and methodological insights to help address prior criticisms and advance future research

economics and the self organisation approach alfred marshall revisited the economics of alfred marshall is reassessed in the light of new developments in the natural sciences whereby a nonequilibrium thermodynamic approach is adopted to analyze self organization in dissipative structures it is argued that there is a clear correspondence between marshall s treatment of time irreversibility and this modern approach particularly when the latter is set in an informational context thus his principles is viewed as a very useful starting point in adapting the self organization approach for application in economics the main features of such a post marshallian approach to economics are discussed and compared with the mechanical approach of neoclassicism copyright 1993 by royal economic society

growth effects of flat rate taxes recent estimates of the potential growth effects of tax reform vary wildly ranging from zero to eight percentage points using an endogenous growth model we assess which model features and parameter values are important for determining the quantitative impact of tax reform we find that the critical parameters are factor shares depreciation rates the elasticity of intertemporal substitution and the elasticity of labor supply the elasticities of substitution in production on the other hand are relatively unimportant the quantitative estimates in several recent papers are compared with each other and with some of the evidence from u s experience we find that robert lucas s conclusion that tax reform would have little or no effect on the u s growth rate is theoretically robust and consistent with the evidence

growth and the international transmission of business cycles two country single good real business cycle models predict that the cross country correlation of output is smaller than the cross country correlations of consumption and productivity in contrast to the evidence in historical samples the objective of this paper is to reproduce the observed empirical evidence in a two country real business cycle model with endogenous growth central features of the model include a nonmarket sector and international externalities in production the model generates realistic cross country correlations for output consumption and productivity with standard parameter values copyright 1996 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

native immigrant wage differentials and occupational segregation in the greek labour market this article explores native immigrant wage differentials in the greek labour market data from the most recent greek household budget survey 2004 05 were employed four alternative occupational categories were considered and occupational choice was explicitly modelled controlling for occupational selectivity occupation specific wage regressions for representative samples of employed native and immigrant workers were estimated and an augmented decomposition technique was utilized to analyse inter and intra occupation wage differentials the obtained results demonstrate that roughly 48 of the average wage differential cannot be explained by differences in observed characteristics and that the larger component of this unexplained part is due to asymmetrical occupational access by native and immigrant workers

the evolution of engel curves and its implications for structural change theory the tendency for expenditure engel curves to flatten out at high income levels is frequently cited as evidence that major shifts in household spending patterns take place as households become more affluent empirically little has been done to examine i how pervasive this tendency is across the engel curves of different goods and services ii whether the rate at which engel curves flatten out may significantly change over time and iii how robust engel curves are in the face of changes in the income distribution of households using data from the uk family expenditure survey we find evidence that the tendency for engel curves to flatten out which we dub saturation is indeed widespread across a wide range of goods and services however a tendency for their shape to shift over time and for these shifts to co move with changes in the income distribution of households casts some doubt on whether the declining slope of engel curves can be used to predict slowdowns in the growth rate of demand for particular goods and services

a perspective on regional and global strategies of multinational enterprises multinational enterprises mnes are the key drivers of globalization as they foster increased economic interdependence among national markets the ultimate test to assess whether these mnes are global themselves is their actual penetration level of markets across the globe especially in the broad triad markets of nafta the european union and asia yet data on the activities of the 500 largest mnes reveal that very few are successful globally for 320 of the 380 firms for which geographic sales data are available an average of 80 3 of total sales are in their home region of the triad this means that many of the world s largest firms are not global but regionally based in terms of breadth and depth of market coverage globalization in terms of a balanced geographic distribution of sales across the triad thus reflects a special and rather unusual outcome of doing international business ib the regional concentration of sales has important implications for various strands of mainstream ib research as well as for the broader managerial debate on the design of optimal strategies and governance structures for mnes journal of international business studies 2004 35 3 18 doi 10 1057 palgrave jibs 8400073

the psychic distance paradox companies tend to begin their internationalization process in countries that are psychically close researchers describe the sequence of entry that firms follow and the mode of entry they choose they suggest that psychically close countries are more easily understood than distant ones and offer more familiar operating environments although not prescriptive an unstated conclusion can be drawn linking sequence of entry to performance evidence from thirty two canadian retail companies shows that only seven 22 were functioning successfully in the united states the psychic distance paradox is that operations in psychically close countries are not necessarily easy to manage because assumptions of similarity can prevent executives from learning about critical differences moreover empirical evidence from 271 ceos confirms greater cultural differences between canada and the u s than assumed previously modifications are suggested to improve the psychic distance concept

the role of finance in environmental innovation diffusion an evolutionary modeling approach abstract the implementation of climate adaptation and mitigation policies depend on the development of green technologies whose diffusion is constrained by a number of barriers which prevent them to spread broadly and at a fast pace by means of an agent based computational model the paper investigates the macro and micro economic dynamics considering the role of a traditional commercial bank and a state investment bank that explicitly supports green investments simulation results emphasize that green finance matter and that the market diffusion of environmental innovation is more pronounced when the presence of the public investment bank is combined with strong consumers preferences oriented towards environmental quality the relevance of the paper is twofold besides contributing to the literature on the finance innovation nexus by considering the role of climate finance within a complex systems framework it provides a model that can be used as a tool to explore policies to foster environmental innovation diffusion

income convergence within and between countries we study how trade changes the rate of income convergence within and between countries in a model of endogenous growth an externality in the production of human capital implies that inequality slows down growth under autarky eventually incomes converge raising the growth rate trade accelerates slows down growth and the rate of income convergence in the poor rich country in the long run trade ensures that countries grow at the same rate and that the ratio of their incomes tends to 1 trade pattern reversals are possible since the initially wealthy country may be overtaken by the poor country the purpose of this paper is to study how trade affects the pattern of income convergence within countries and between countries in an endogenous growth model moreover we analyze the related issue of how income inequality alters the effects of trade we use a dynamic 2 x 2 factor proportions model with endogenous growth to examine income convergence the factors of production are unskilled labor and human capital growth proceeds through the accumulation of human capital by agents who are differentiated by their stocks of human capital agents live a single period during which they spend resources in their descendants education the expenditure in a descendant s education enters the utility function of each agent in our model the accumulation of human capital is the result of both formal and informal processes the formal process corresponds to schooling and depends on parental expenditure in education the informal process of producing human capital corresponds to the education agents receive in their homes and through social interaction with neighbors and schoolmates in the informal process the first effect depends on the education of the parents while the second corresponds to an externality acting through the average level of human capital in society we begin our study by examining income convergence in a closed economy as the society s stock of human capital increases the relative price of the equitatively distributed factor unskilled labor goes up which tends to reduce long term inequality on the other hand rich agents spend a higher proportion of their income in education tending to raise inequality we derive a sufficient condition for the former effect to outweigh the latter effect that is for inequality to disappear in the

the market failure and the systemic failure rationales in technological innovation systems abstract in this paper we analyse the conceptual relationship between the market failure rationale and the systemic failure rationale as justifications for policy intervention within an innovation systems is analytical framework current policy analyses in the is literature are characterised by two contrasting theoretical positions regarding the way in which both rationales are conceptually interrelated in one strand of the literature the market failure rationale is considered as a valid although insufficient justification for policy intervention that therefore needs to be complemented by the arguments put forward by the systemic failure rationale this perspective implicitly presents the systemic failure framework as a more general approach than the market failure perspective on the other hand a number of is policy contributions explicitly reject the market failure approach and consider it a flawed argument for government intervention in this theoretical view the systemic failure approach is thus proposed as a more appropriate alternative innovation policy rationale despite their relevance as the theoretical bases that currently underpin actual innovation policy design an analysis of the robustness and conceptual coherence of these contrasting perspectives has not been provided so far in this work we set the analytical steps we deem required for this analysis and investigate under which premises the relationship between the market failure and the system failure rationales proposed by these two policy perspectives is valid from a theoretical point of view

cultural differences mne learning abilities and the effect of experience on subsidiary mortality in a dissimilar culture evidence from korean mnes in a departure from prior studies presuming a beneficial experience effect in foreign direct investment fdi the present paper examines the conditions under which fdi experience may actually harm subsequent subsidiaries we argue that multinational enterprises mnes may draw erroneous inferences and learn incorrectly from their early expansions when new to a dissimilar culture because their learning abilities are eroded by cultural differences we posit that the characteristics of an mne s international expansion including scope pace rhythm and entry mode moderate this negative experience effect by influencing the mne s learning ability in foreign cultures using a data set of fdis by south korean mnes between 1990 and 2006 we find a positive relationship between subsidiary mortality and experience when an mne has a low level of experience in a dissimilar culture this relationship is weaker if the mne s prior fdi has been dispersed across different cultures is stronger if it expanded internationally at a fast pace and becomes negative once the mne has accumulated a high level of experience in the host culture we conclude that when expanding into dissimilar cultures mnes must establish mechanisms to mitigate incorrect learning and reexamine the correctness of inferences drawn from past experience before applying them

entrepreneurial proclivity capability upgrading and performance advantage of newness among international new ventures in spite of a notable interest surrounding the learning advantages of newness lan centered on the emergent international entrepreneurship literature we have only limited understanding of how young international new ventures invs acquire learning advantages and avoid the liabilities of newness and foreignness in order to achieve lan related performance from early internationalization in this article two related but conceptually distinct capability upgrading constructs knowledge capability upgrading and network capability upgrading are identified to serve as mediating mechanisms that link entrepreneurial proclivity and lan related performance our findings from a sample of 436 young invs from china provide supporting evidence for the mediating effect of capability upgrading particularly among relatively larger new ventures and those operating with cost price advantages in the international marketplace this study fills a gap in the under researched area of literature surrounding invs from emerging economies and demonstrates how young international venturing firms can leverage the entrepreneurial dynamics of learning to achieve growth opportunities from early internationalization

from simplistic to complex systems in economics the applicability of complex systems theory in economics is evaluated and compared with standard approaches to economic theorising based upon constrained optimisation a complex system is defined in the economic context and differentiated from complex systems in physio chemical and biological settings it is explained why it is necessary to approach economic analysis from a network rather than a production and utility function perspective when we are dealing with complex systems it is argued that much of heterodox thought particularly in neo schumpeterian and neo austrian evolutionary economics can be placed within a complex systems perspective upon the economy the challenge is to replace prevailing simplistic theories based in constrained optimisation with simple theories derived from network representations in which value is created through the establishment of new connections between elements

economic growth and the structure of long term development this volume collects some of the papers presented at the 82nd round table conference of the international economic association that was organised in collaboration with fondazione eni enrico mattei the book considers different approaches to the analysis of economic growth and it is organised in five parts par i is devoted to empirical evidence part ii contains six papers which present a series of models based on different approaches but with special emphasis on endogenous growth and on schumpeterian models of growth and fluctuations part iii of the book is devoted to the impact of international trade on economic development part iv examines the effects of economic development on the natural environment the final part of the book part v contains the concluding evaluations contributors p aghion r aversi d ben david g bertola o castellino f donati g dosi w easterly s fabiani c freeman r goodwin j helliwell e helpman p howitt r king m landesmann r levine s lombardini k g maler w d nordhaus l l pasinetti s rebelo a sen l soete r m solow m syrquin b verspagen s zervos

on the complexities of complex economic dynamics complex economic nonlinear dynamics endogenously do not converge to a point a limit cycle or an explosion their study developed out of earlier studies of cybernetic catastrophic and chaotic systems complexity analysis stresses interactions among dispersed agents without a global controller tangled hierarchies adaptive learning evolution and novelty and out of equilibrium dynamics complexity methods include interacting particle systems self organized criticality and evolutionary game theory to simulate artificial stock markets and other phenomena theoretically bounded rationality replaces rational expectations complexity theory influences empirical methods and restructures policy debates

critical survey endogenous growth theory a critical assessment a critical assessment is made of endogenous growth theory from the perspective of recent developments within economics as a discipline these include its increasing mathematical formalisation its focus upon microfoundations the casual use of econometrics to test models and the incorporation of factors that have traditionally been outside mainstream economics it is found that the theory focuses upon market imperfections and technological progress in a variety of ways and reconstructs their impact upon the macroeconomy as a growth rather than as a level effect whilst the growth rate is endogenised this leads to the problem of multiple equilibria and extremely complex dynamics the generalisation from exogenous growth theory is however associated with even more extreme assumptions and analytical distance from the socioeconomic processes of growth itself copyright 2000 by oxford university press

beyond categorization new directions for theory development about entrepreneurial internationalization categorizations emphasizing the earliness of internationalization have long been a cornerstone of international entrepreneurship research here we contend that the prominence of categories has not been commensurate with theory development associated with them we draw on categorization theory to explain why earliness based categories are persistent and argue that a greater focus on notions related to opportunity can open new avenues of research about the entrepreneurial internationalization of business we propose and discuss three directions for opportunity based research on entrepreneurial internationalization involving context dynamics and variety

total factor productivity vs realism revisited the case of the south korean steel industry this paper presents key features of the development of the south korean steel industry through the critical examination of an article by truett and truett despite their claim to exhibit realism by use of a translog cost function their methodology has strong affinities with the methods of measuring total factor productivity growth which have long been known as invalid but continue to be applied not least to the experience of east asian countries it will be argued that the theoretical and empirical flaws involved with these methods invalidate their results and corresponding policy implications above all by showing that the assumptions for their calculation do not hold in terms of the economic conditions of the industry the paper points to a different understanding of realism than that conceived by and for their study copyright 2005 oxford university press

equilibrium dynamics in two sector models of endogenous growth abstract this paper considers two extensions of the uzawa lucas framework in our first extension physical capital is included as an input of the educational sector in our second extension leisure considerations are assumed to play a positive role in agents welfare the case with physical capital in the production of education features under standard conditions a unique steady state and thus the dynamics are qualitatively similar to those of the original uzawa lucas framework in our second model with leisure there could be a multiplicity of steady states with different rates of growth what determines here the chosen rate of growth is the initial relative amount of physical and human capital our results therefore illustrate that in a world without externalities there could coexist different long term growth rates

the problem of population and growth a review of the literature from malthus to contemporary models of endogenous population and endogenous growth abstract this paper deals with the evolution of the literature on the problem of population and growth from the classical period to the recent literature on endogenous growth and development the problem concerns two distinct issues 1 how to explain the observed covariation of the levels and rates of growth of per capita income and population size over time and space and 2 how to improve the human condition represented by these variables through an accommodating social policy the evolution of the literature we survey is reflected by the progressive treatment of key variables as endogenous rather than exogenous to the growth process it is also reflected by a shift from the historical concern about population explosion and its implications for growth to the more recent concern about the association between growth and population implosion in many developed countries

a rostovian model of endogenous growth and underdevelopment traps the paper presents a model which combines self sustained growth and underdevelopment traps into a common analytical framework we provide an analytical interpretations to rostow s observation that there is a decisive interval in the history of a society when growth becomes its normal condition and to the empirical evidence that some countries seem not to have achieved this stage yet the model exhibits aggregate non convexities and thresholds which separate a region where growth is solow type with convergence to a stationary steady state from a region where growth is romer type with endogenous self sustained growth in some critical stages of development there exist multiple equilibrium trajectories consistent with alternative sets of self fulfilling beliefs

routine microprocesses and capability learning in international new ventures drawing on the distinction between the ostensive aspects abstract patterns and performative aspects specific actions of organizational routines the paper offers a micro level explanation of capability learning in international new ventures invs that is firms that internationalize actively from inception the paper argues that variability in the performative aspects of internationalization routines is associated with improvisational learning and new capability development whereas variability in the ostensive aspects is associated with trial and error learning and existing capability improvement furthermore psychic distance moderates these relationships low psychic distance facilitates both improvisation and trial and error learning high psychic distance frustrates learning of both types moderate psychic distance makes the success of both learning forms more likely but only for more experienced invs the paper also argues that social capital may mitigate the negative effects of high psychic distance it contributes to the extant literature by providing a micro level explanation of how invs accomplish capability learning and avoid wasteful learning efforts and by theorizing the moderating effects of psychic distance on the relationships between routine microprocesses and capability learning

legitimating first organizing activities and the survival of new ventures abstract the process by which firm founders create new organizations is of considerable interest to evolutionary theorists and entrepreneurship researchers this article tracks the life histories of 223 swedish new ventures started between january and september 1998 by a random sample of firm founders we explore the effect of legitimating activities on the hazard of disbanding and the transition to other firm organizing activities during their first 30 months of life we find that undertaking activities to generate legitimacy reduces the hazard of venture disbanding and facilitates the transition to other organizing activities

how did the increase in economic inequality between 1970 and 1990 affect children s educational attainment 1 this study estimates the effect of changes in economic inequality between 1970 and 1990 on children s educational attainment data on individual children from the panel study of income dynamics is combined with other data on state characteristics growing up in a state with widespread economic inequality increases educational attainment for high income children and lowers it for low income children most of the effect is due to factors unassociated with family income or economic segregation in the state these other factors include state spending for schooling and the increase in the returns to schooling over this period

levels and long term trends in earnings inequality overcoming current population survey censoring problems using the gb2 distribution over its history the march current population survey cps has increasingly captured the upper tail of the distribution of all sources of income this together with time consistency problems in top coding means that users of both the public use and restricted access cps will understate the level of wage earnings and income inequality in earlier years and overstate their growth over time we address this problem by modeling the personal earnings of full time full year workers using the generalized beta distribution of the second kind calculating gini coefficients from the estimated parameters and comparing them with past findings

born global or born regional evidence from an exploratory study in the costa rican software industry this paper provides empirical evidence about born global firms in the software industry of a small developing country with an open economy costa rica the paper is based on data collected through interviews with ceos or founders of 40 costa rican software companies findings show that there are few born global firms among costa rican software providers we find that most companies followed a gradual approach to internationalization and they did not export immediately upon birth a careful analysis of firms that exported soon after they were born reveals that most firms are actually born regional

endogenous growth and intermediation in an archipelago economy a general equilibrium model based on the parable of an economy of many islands shows the market imperfections in the intermediation activity affect economic growth and possibly prevent take off into sustained growth the inhabitants of different islands accumulate heterogeneous assets and transportation type intermediation allows for better allocation of the productive resources the development process is accompanied by a reduction in intermediation costs which induces firms to adopt more efficient techniques and sustains economic growth a laissez faire economy suffers from two distortions the existence of market imperfections and a thick market externality

relation of dominant problems to stages of growth in technology based new ventures two studies investigating the growth patterns of new ventures are presented in the first study a stage of growth model theorized to apply specifically to technology based new ventures was develop

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

knowledge dynamics structural change and the geography of business services the article provides a review of and presents some empirical evidence on the dynamics of knowledge structural change and spatial concentration of economic activities focusing on the case of business services it explores how the role of knowledge has evolved in relation to the dimensions of i science technology and structural change ii the long term processes of tertiarisation of the economy in particular the growth of business services iii the spatial concentration of business services as an outcome of the increasing volume and complexity of knowledge and the need to manage it through spatial proximity our arguments are supported by empirical evidence on the spatial concentration of business services in the european regions

blockchain and the evolution of institutional technologies implications for innovation policy abstract for the past century economists have proposed a suite of theories relating to industrial dynamics technological change and innovation there has been an implication in these models that the institutional environment is stable however a new class of institutional technologies most notably blockchain technology lower the cost of institutional entrepreneurship along these margins propelling a process of institutional evolution this presents a new type of innovation process applicable to the formation and development of institutions for economic governance and coordination this paper develops a replicator dynamic model of institutional innovation and proposes some implications of this innovation for innovation policy given the influence of public policies on transaction costs and associated institutional choices it is indicated that policy settings conductive to the adoption and use of blockchain technology would elicit entrepreneurial experiments in institutional forms harnessing new coordinative possibilities in economic exchange conceptualisation of blockchain related public policy an innovation policy in its own right has significant implications for the operation and understanding of open innovation systems in a globalised context

wealth inequality educational environment and school enrolment evidence from mexico using data from the extended section of the 2010 mexican census 2 9 million households we study how school enrolment is associated with wealth inequality and with the educational environment the child is exposed to at the household and municipal levels we provide robust evidence of wealth inequality as a negative predictor of school enrolment for children in primary secondary and high school age ranges while a positive role is played by the educational environment through the introduction of interaction terms we account for how economic and educational variables are intertwined at both the household and the municipal level and we are able to illustrate the considerable heterogeneity in the role of adult education for households at different standards of living

semiglobalization and international business strategy if markets were either completely isolated by or integrated across borders there would be little room for international business strategy to have content distinctive from mainstream strategy but a review of the economic evidence about the international integration of markets indicates that we fall in between these extremes into a state of incomplete cross border integration that i refer to as semiglobalization more specifically most measures of market integration have scaled new heights in the last few decades but still fall far short of economic theory s ideal of perfect integration the diagnosis of semiglobalization does more than just supply a relatively stable frame of reference for thinking about the environment of cross border operations it also calls attention to the critical role of location specificity in the prospects of distinctive content for international business strategy relative to mainstream business and corporate strategy in addition it flags factors products subject to location specificity as being salient from the perspective of international business finally it highlights the scope for strategies that strive to capitalize on the large residual barriers to cross border integration as well as those that simply try to cope with them

small firm internationalisation unveiled through phenomenography phenomenography is proposed here as a qualitative methodology for investigating how owner managers practise internationalisation in small firms and it is applied in an empirical study of internationalising owner managed small australian wineries the findings show a common internationalisation activity cycle but four qualitatively different ways in which these owner managers practise internationalisation we reveal that this variation in owner manager internationalisation practices is determined by their understandings of internationalisation which produce differences in the ways activities within their internationalisation activity cycle are orchestrated in particular phenomenography has enabled new insights into the multiplicity of firm internationalisation practices not able to be captured through other qualitative methodologies such as ethnography or semiotics as they are not designed to capture such variation based on our findings we propose an understanding based theory to explain the idiosyncratic nature of owner managed small firm internationalisation furthermore we suggest that phenomenography used independently or in conjunction with other qualitative methodologies also has potential to reveal the varying practices of internationalising large mnes by enabling an investigation of the collective or shared understanding of firm internationalisation within mnes finally we point out how phenomenography can be extended beyond firm internationalisation practices to investigate other topics within international business

recent immigrants as labor market arbitrageurs evidence from the minimum wage this paper investigates the local labor supply effects of changes to the minimum wage by examining the response of low skilled immigrants location decisions canonical models emphasize the importance of labor mobility when evaluating the employment effects of the minimum wage yet few studies address this outcome directly low skilled immigrant populations shift toward labor markets with stagnant minimum wages and this result is robust to a number of alternative interpretations this mobility provides behavior based evidence in favor of a non trivial negative employment effect of the minimum wage further it reduces the estimated demand elasticity using teens employment losses among native teens are substantially larger in states that have historically attracted few immigrant residents

internationalization tacit knowledge and the top management teams of mncs this study investigates the effects of several dimensions of internationalization on the behavior of mncs top management teams the effects include top executives personal presence in foreign markets their participation in meetings about international strategic issues and their tacit knowledge of the firms international business activities

dynamic capabilities what are they this paper focuses on dynamic capabilities and more generally the resource based view of the firm we argue that dynamic capabilities are a set of specific and identifiable processes such as product development strategic decision making and alliancing they are neither vague nor tautological although dynamic capabilities are idiosyncratic in their details and path dependent in their emergence they have significant commonalities across firms popularly termed best practice this suggests that they are more homogeneous fungible equifinal and substitutable than is usually assumed in moderately dynamic markets dynamic capabilities resemble the traditional conception of routines they are detailed analytic stable processes with predictable outcomes in contrast in high velocity markets they are simple highly experiential and fragile processes with unpredictable outcomes finally well known learning mechanisms guide the evolution of dynamic capabilities in moderately dynamic markets the evolutionary emphasis is on variation in high velocity markets it is on selection at the level of rbv we conclude that traditional rbv misidentifies the locus of long term competitive advantage in dynamic markets overemphasizes the strategic logic of leverage and reaches a boundary condition in high velocity markets copyright 2000 john wiley sons ltd

born international smes bi level impacts of resources and intentions the katz and gartner 1988 model describes four central properties of emerging organizations resources intention exchange and boundary while designed as a general model for organizations the approach has the potential to explain the early lives of born international firms in this study boundary is used to define the central sampling frame two other properties resources and intention are evaluated in terms of their impact on the fourth property exchange measured as a firm s export growth and intensity given the inherent presence of two levels of analysis in emerging organizations intention and resources are evaluated at both the individual and the organizational level a sample n 47 of young born international firms in the indian software industry was studied using a questionnaire results of the analysis are mixed for resources at both the individual and firm level variables intention is significant at the individual level but not the firm level contrary to other studies these findings suggest that during the early stages of firm development owner not firm characteristics play a pivotal role in performance especially exports the speculation is that this occurs because in early stages firms are relatively disorganized relative to the owner

public spending endogenous growth and endogenous fluctuations abstract this article studies indeterminacy and endogenous growth in a simple one sector model of capital accumulation endowed with inelastic labor supply in which the presence of public goods creates positive externalities both in the production and the consumption sectors because of increasing returns in the utility function the economy exhibits not only perpetual growth but also indeterminacy and therefore endogenous stochastic growth fluctuations the possibility of sunspot equilibrium growth paths is shown to be consistent with plausible parameter values journal of economic literatureclassification numbers e32 o41 h40

two sides of the same coin u s residual inequality and the gender gap abstract we show that the narrowing gender gap and the growth in earnings inequality are consistent with a simple model in which skills are heterogeneous and the growth in skill prices has been particularly strong for skills with which women are well endowed empirical analysis of dot cps and nlsy79 data finds evidence to support this model a large increase in the prices of cognitive and people skills skills with which women are well endowed and a decline in the price of motor skills account for up to 40 percent of the rising inequality and 20 percent of the narrowing gender gap

in defense of inequality this is a perfect time to discuss inequality after a period of three decades when wage inequality among men in the united states grew to approximate pre world war ii levels measured inequality apparently has stabilized and may in fact be decreasing claudia goldin and robert a margo 1992 it is therefore a good time to assess the changes to compare the gains and losses i choose this topic not to offend but because i believe inequality is an economic good that has received too much bad press i also think you will agree that it is a good which like any other can be scarce or overly abundant i am neither trying to praise nor defend poverty and i hope it is understood that the link between wages and income is not especially close particularly at lower incomes where nonemployment dominates wages play many roles in our economy along with time worked they determine labor income but they also signal relative scarcity and abundance and with malleable skills wages provide incentives to render the services that are most highly valued further we all buy and sell labor either directly or indirectly as labor is embodied in products to reverse one of the themes of milton friedman s introductory theory class one man s poison can be another s meat together with rising relative wages the post 1950 increase in the job market employment of women is one of our major accomplishments but it is an accomplishment that has been fueled in part by the low wages earned by those the census classifies as private household workers childcare workers workers in laundries and cleaning establishments food service workers etc as the population ages the prospect of increasing dependence on personal assistance looms for the most part personal assistants and aides earn low wages wages that extend the services we can afford friedman s actual observation is however that one man s meat is not necessarily another s poison friedman 1976 the relatively high wages earned by physicians scientists and university professors have attracted many immigrants to the united states would we be better off if they had not immigrated we could in fact reduce wage inequality by simply proscribing immigration because the wage distribution of immigrants is u shaped relative to that of natives see j p smith and b edmonston 1997 p 180 table 5 4 my guess is that most economists faced with such an option would respond by directing attention to the services immigrants provide my objective is to examine the recent period of increasing wage inequality with an eye toward the positive i describe some of the changes that have occurred speculate about the causes and wrap up with illustrations of consequences i contend that growing inequality has created opportunities that have been exploited by many and that the gains are not restricted to the traditional elite moreover when we have adopted policies to mitigate the downside of increasing inequality which is falling real wages in the lower parts of the distribution a surprising number of individuals have also capitalized on those opportunities in ways that are not productive before turning to the data i want to make a few general observations department of economics texas a m university college station tx 77843 4228 i am indebted to martin gritsch for assistance in extracting the data and to barbara charlton for secretarial support i am also indebted to participants in the ucla rand labor workshop and especially to janet currie and james p smith for comments and suggestions on an earlier draft i have drawn heavily on my previous work much of it in collaboration with kevin m murphy

does psychic distance moderate the market size entry sequence relationship an analysis of 924 foreign market entries made by a sample of chinese exporters reveals that psychic distance moderates the relationship between foreign market size and entry sequence in doing so this study challenges the extant hypothesis that the establishment of foreign operations conforms to a simple pattern of increasing psychic distance to markets the findings also reveal that psychic distance is asymmetrical in nature and that assessments made by sellers and their buyers are inherently inequivalent

risk aversion and rising wage inequality abstract we propose a model in which as incomes grow workers become less risk averse and move from fixed wage contracts to variable pay this can explain the recent increase in wage dispersion between groups within groups and over the lifecycle

a microeconomic mechanism for economic growth this paper constructs a dynamic general equilibrium model in which economic growth is explained by the evolution of the division of labor the relationships among the accumulation of human capital the evolution of the division of labor endogenous comparative advantage trade dependence the market structure and economic growth are investigated

the limits of trade policy reform in developing countries trade reform is now raising some new issues this paper deals with three sets of questions first how can trade reform be sustained can governments convince business labor or consumers that trade reform will be lasting so as to forestall possible adverse reactions that would jeopardize the sustainability of the reform second what role should trade reform play when it is implemented in the context of macroeconomic instability are there potential conflicts between the standard desiderata for trade reform and the requirements of macro stability finally should we be worried about the consequences of trade reform in the imperfectly competitive market environments that characterize the developing economies

a dynamic generalization of becker s assortative matching result abstract this paper considers a dynamic matching model in which each agent s future productivity depends in part on their current match as in labor markets schooling intergenerational marriage markets and other environments the planner s endogenous rankings of human distributions are characterized these planner rankings are then used to develop sufficient conditions for positive assortative matching to be dynamically efficient one lesson that emerges is that complementarity assumptions alone are insufficient for a robust sorting theory the curvature of the static production function is also critical to determine optimal sorting patterns in addition the planner s ranking of distributions over human capital yield characterizations of individual attitudes toward human capital gambles in an associated market equilibrium finally the implied dynamics for 1 individual wages and 2 wage distributions across age cohorts are characterized

on endogenous growth with physical and human capital this paper presents a class of models in which agents may devote part of their nonleisure activities to going to school so as to increase the efficiency units of labor they supply to the firms and the wages they receive the interaction among the technology of human capital accumulation and agents preferences will determine endogenously the economy s rate of growth given a constant returns to scale technology for physical capital accumulation we characterize the set of steady states as a ray from the origin and show the global convergence of every off balanced path to some point on this ray further properties concerning the dynamic evolution of the state and control variables around the ray of steady states are also established our analysis is useful to understand the role played by the technologies of physical and human capital in the process of accumulation and to evaluate the impact of policies geared toward attaining higher levels of capital our results highlight the importance of human capital

experiential knowledge and costs in the internationalization process using a behavioral approach this study identifies and delineates components of experiential knowledge in the internationalization process three hypotheses are developed and tested they center around the lack of knowledge in the areas of foreign business foreign institutions and firm internationalization as well as the effect that this lack of knowledge has on managers perceived cost in the internationalization process with the help of a lisrel based structural model the three hypotheses are tested on a sample of 362 service firms the analysis shows that lack of internationalization knowledge has a strong impact on the lack of both business and institutionalization but there is no direct effect of lack of internationalization knowledge on perceived cost of internationalization

economics imperialism and the new development economics as kuhnian paradigm shift abstract this paper addresses the evolving relationship between economics and other social sciences it sets the present intellectual scene as one in which economics imperialism is rampaging across other disciplines the designs of economics upon development studies are examined in terms of the kuhnian notion of paradigm shift thereby the conclusion is drawn of the potential prospect of open debate around the economy and development not least outside economics itself but there is danger of economics imperialism in the form of the post washington consensus foreclosing the analytical agenda at the expense of approaches based on the political economy of capitalism

optimal public investments in education and endogenous growth optimal public investments in human capital through subsidizing private education or providing public education are considered in an endogenous growth model with externalities subsidizing private education stimulates growth improves welfare and has no distributional effect while reducing income inequality as in the literature public education hinders the growth of the average income unless externalities are strong enough and reduces the welfare of the median agent unless initial income inequality is sufficiently high societies with high income inequality may provide public education and will replace it with subsidized private education in some future periods as income converges copyright 1996 by the editors of the scandinavian journal of economics

network structure and the diffusion of knowledge this paper models knowledge diffusion as a barter process in which agents exchange different types of knowledge this is intended to capture the observed practice of informal knowledge trading agents are located on a network and are directly connected with a small number of other agents agents repeatedly meet those with whom direct connections exist and trade if mutually profitable trades exist in this way knowledge diffuses throughout the economy we examine the relationship between network architecture and diffusion performance we consider the space of structures that fall between at one extreme a network in which every agent is connected to n nearest neighbours and at the other extreme a network with each agent being connected to on average n randomly chosen agents we find that the performance of the system exhibits clear small world properties in that the steady state level of average knowledge is maximal when the structure is a small world that is when most connections are local but roughly 10 percent of them are long distance the variance of knowledge levels among agents is maximal in the small world region whereas the coefficient of variation is minimal we explain these results as reflecting the dynamics of knowledge transmission as affected by the architecture of connections among agents

the network dynamics of international new ventures this study uses multi site case research to advance a set of propositions regarding the network dynamics of early stage international new ventures the investigative approach builds on arguments that network theory and analysis are fundamental to international entrepreneurship in the spirit of cross disciplinary research perspectives from the entrepreneurship literature are embraced to help inform our understanding of international new venture networks

mnc subsidiary channel relationships as extended links implications of global strategies foreign subsidiaries of multinational corporations mncs rely on external partners such as channel partners to achieve global objectives we conceptualize the subsidiary s channel partner as an extended link of the mnc s internal network thus the subsidiary s adaptation and execution of the mnc s global strategies should influence the subsidiary s channel relationship and performance building on the strategy environment alignment framework we study the influence of mnc global strategies global efficiency multinational flexibility and worldwide learning on a subsidiary s channel commitment and the moderating influence of the host country environment survey data from german and japanese mncs in the united states indicate the importance of global strategies to a channel relationship for example we find that an emphasis on multinational flexibility is detrimental but worldwide learning benefits the subsidiary s channel commitment we also find that the host country environment plays a contingent role for example a global efficiency strategy is beneficial for channel commitment in a stable environment but detrimental in a dynamic environment our research offers key implications for mncs we suggest that when mncs decide to lay emphases on global strategies the mncs should consider not just their internal subsidiary network but also their extended channel partner links that function in foreign markets

volunteering for heterogeneous tasks abstract we model the search for volunteers as a war of attrition every player is tempted to wait for someone else to volunteer for the tasks when tasks are not equivalent it may be optimal to volunteer quickly to perform an easy task we analyze the trade off between volunteering for an easy task and taking the risk of having to perform a more strenuous task in order to get the chance of avoiding all tasks when the cost of waiting is borne by agents until every task has found a volunteer we show that it may be optimal to volunteer for the difficult task even if an easier task is available in order to speed up the process and reduce the costs of waiting

endogenous fertility multiple growth paths and economic convergence abstract this paper extends the cass koopmans optimal growth model to allow for endogenous fertility choice it is shown that if agents choose their fertility rate then the net rate of return on capital marginal product of capital minus the population growth rate may not be monotonically decreasing in capital in this case multiple steady states and growth paths may emerge which can explain the persistent differentials in income between poor and rich countries as well as the existence of development miracles and disasters the paper provides also empirical evidence which supports the existence of multiple convergence groups and is consistent with the theoretical model

macroeconomic structure endogenous technical change and growth this paper shows the relevance of the macroeconomic structure that governs short term changes in aggregate demand and income distribution in the determination of long term growth rates it develops a new growth model by introducing endogenous technical change into a keynesian marxist synthesis model of accumulation and distribution this model has multiple equilibria a high growth equilibrium that is stable if rising wage share leads to an increase in investment and real wages are somewhat rigid and a low growth equilibrium that is stable under opposite circumstances based on this result the paper discusses how institutions and history matter in long term growth copyright 1994 by oxford university press

sequencing the expansion of geographic scope and foreign operations by born global firms born global firms are not actually born global but rather internationalize rapidly from their inception by expanding their geographic scope and extent of foreign operations however it remains unclear whether such firms 1 simultaneously expand along both dimensions 2 focus on expanding along a single dimension at a given time and switch interchangeably between expanding geographic scope and extent of foreign operations in subsequent periods or 3 stick solely to a specific internationalization path over several subsequent periods this study theorizes and empirically demonstrates that born global firms stick to a dominant internationalization path over subsequent periods arguably this phenomenon reflects managerial efforts to reduce the perceived risk of internationalization and their preference to develop and leverage capabilities that are specific to either of the internationalization paths until the economies of further expanding this path are exhausted

searching locally and globally applying daniel levinthal s scholarship to international business daniel a levinthal has made several important contributions to the fields of strategy and management his research has been pivotal in enhancing our understanding of interactions between the internal and external contexts that organizations face as well as the roles of experience search and learning processes despite substantial overlap between the core issues in international business ib and levinthal s work the ib field has yet to fully embrace key tenets of his research we aim to bridge this gap by providing a number of concrete suggestions for areas in which ib research may benefit from levinthal s work and vice versa

the influence of the management team s international experience on the internationalization behaviors of smes why are some small and medium sized enterprises smes more successful in selling outside their domestic markets than are other smes in the same industry although the traditional explanation is that firms can gain valuable knowledge and resources as they become older and larger small and young firms are not necessarily disadvantaged if they develop other mechanisms to acquire the requisite knowledge and resources we examine the role of the management team s international experience as such a mechanism for the internationalization of canadian software product firms we show that internationally experienced management teams have a greater propensity to develop foreign strategic partners and to delay less in obtaining foreign sales after start up and that these behaviors are associated with a higher degree of internationalization

adjusting to and learning from institutional diversity toward a capability building perspective this paper identifies two main dimensions institutional diversity and dynamism in the research stream that has substantively engaged with the important contribution of jackson and deeg j int bus stud 39 4 540 561 2008 taking into account their core criticism that institutional analysis in international business research is often de contextualized and building on these two dimensions we present two possible paths for institutional analysis that are sensitive to context the first is a methodological shift towards configurational analyses and specifically the analysis of counterfactual scenarios that could reveal new information about decision alternatives the second is a shift away from a focus on costs and towards the possibility of mnes building capabilities in an exploratory manner when confronted with institutional diversity both approaches build on an understanding of mnes as strategic actors that co evolve with their environments

the uppsala internationalization process model revisited from liability of foreignness to liability of outsidership the uppsala internationalization process model is revisited in the light of changes in business practices and theoretical advances that have been made since 1977 now the business environment is viewed as a web of relationships a network rather than as a neoclassical market with many independent suppliers and customers outsidership in relation to the relevant network more than psychic distance is the root of uncertainty the change mechanisms in the revised model are essentially the same as those in the original version although we add trust building and knowledge creation the latter to recognize the fact that new knowledge is developed in relationships

analysis of a two sector model of endogenous growth with capital income taxation this paper addresses a two sector model of endogenous growth in which one sector produces final goods and the other produces new human capital both sectors employ human as well as physical capital under constant returns to scale technologies unlike existing studies of this type of model that have mostly concentrated on steady state analysis or on numerical simulations of calibrated models this paper presents an analytical argument concerning the dynamic behavior of the growth path and the effects of capital income taxation in and out of the steady growth equilibrium it is demonstrated that the dynamic behavior of the economy and some policy effects depend heavily upon the magnitude of factor intensity used in each production sector copyright 1996 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

tax rate uncertainty and the sensitivity of consumption to income in an overlapping generations model abstract a well documented feature of u s data is that the aggregate consumption is a smoother process than income an overlapping generations model with a time nonseparable utility function is developed to characterize the effect of income tax uncertainty on the degree of consumption smoothness the model predicts that an increased tax uncertainty combined with tax financed production externality makes the aggregate consumption smoother for a plausible range of intertemporal substitution in consumption a calibration experiment indicates that the observed long term smoothness of aggregate consumption is consistent with the model s predicted consumption process