Suchergebnisse

There are close to 3,000 international investment agreements (IIAs) that aim to protect and promote cross-border investment. Do they achieve their main purpose? This paper provides novel firm-level evidence on the effects of IIAs on location decisions of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in a multi-country context. It uses unique micro-level data on the location of MNEs' affiliates globally and country-pair data on the coverage and content of treaties over a twenty-year period (1990-2010). It finds that IIAs, in particular those with the investor state dispute settlement (ISDS), increase the probability of MNEs' first foreign entry when they are accompanied by a double-taxation treaty. This interaction between investment and tax treaties can have important policy implications.

There are close to 3,000 international investment agreements (IIAs) that aim to protect and promote cross-border investment. Do they achieve their main purpose? This paper provides novel firm-level evidence on the effects of IIAs on location decisions of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in a multi-country context. It uses unique micro-level data on the location of MNEs' affiliates globally and country-pair data on the coverage and content of treaties over a twenty-year period (1990-2010). It finds that IIAs, in particular those with the investor state dispute settlement (ISDS), increase the probability of MNEs' first foreign entry when they are accompanied by a double-taxation treaty. This interaction between investment and tax treaties can have important policy implications.

Culture & knowledge are interdependent & fundamental productive systems in the validation of human lives that must be carefully conceptualized -- as opposed to being viewed simply as aspects of unequal global resource distribution -- if a critical project of opposition to the hegemony of Western culture & knowledge is to be mounted. A postmodern view of culture as plural, primary, & productive seems preferable to conservative, liberal, & Marxist frameworks. Challenges to the standard epistemologies, especially of science, technology, & development, by philosophers of science, feminists, & Third World writers again suggest the need for a plural & political conception of knowledge. From there, a moral/political project based on the work of writers such as Michel Foucault can be taken up. In order to make universities forums for discussion & social change rather than the conduit pipes for monoparadigmatic forms of culture & knowldege that they are today, intellectuals need to involve themselves in political projects that aim to both oppose the hegemony of the dominant discourses (diremption), & to identify, produce, & legitimate subjugated knowledges & cultures (redemption). AA

This Note examines the logical and empirical validity of the reasons for the passage of the DISC legislation. Basically, the DISC legislation was prompted by the negative trade balance in 1971, a novel phenomenon in post-World War II United States. Providing a tax break on producers' export income was viewed as a way of reducing trade deficits by stimulating exports. On its surface, using "tax expenditures" to reach this goal seems logical, or at least benign. But when one considers that the primary thrust of the legislation was to encourage small producers to enter the export market, the logic of using a statutory plan that is convoluted at best and baroque at worst is seriously flawed. After reviewing the legislative history of DISCs, this Note examines the basic mechanics of setting up and operating them. Next, selected aspects of the inner workings of these special corporations will be examined in detail, with particular attention paid to strategies for maximizing DISC benefits. In the final section, policy considerations will be considered in light of a conclusion: Despite the well-intentioned goals of DISC legislation, the DISC concept has been developed in an overly detailed statute, the complex wording of which threatens to obscure the whole purpose of DISCs. That the DISC provisions' marginal impact on reducing trade deficits is so small compared to the compliance maze they create argues strongly for either their immediate repeal or their drastic simplification. While the rules are in effect, however, tax managers of companies with significant income from exports are foolish not to gain tax advantages with DISCs.

More than a decade after the European Court of Justice's "open skies" judgments, is the European Union (EU) now capable of asserting a leading role in the international aviation regime? This article approaches the EU's external aviation policy through the lenses of role theory and, more precisely, through the threefold connotation of the concept of role: role conceptions, role expectations, and role performance. It finds that there is a converging tendency between the three dimensions and that the gap between external expectations and actual policy behaviour on the one hand, and the EU's aspiration for a leading role in international aviation on the other, is diminishing. Over time, then, the EU could indeed transform from a regional trendsetter into a leading player in the international aviation regime.