The RELQUAL scale: a measure of relationship quality in export market ventures

In this article, the authors develop a new measurement scale (the RELQUAL scale) to assess the degree of relationship quality between the exporting firm and the importer. Relationship quality is presented as a high-order concept. Findings reveal that a better quality of the relationship results in a greater (1) amount of information sharing, (2) communication quality, (3) long-term orientation, as well as (4) satisfaction with the relationship. The four multi-item scales show strong evidence of reliability as well as convergent, discriminant and nomological validity in a sample of British exporters. Findings also reveal that relationship quality is positively and significantly associated with export performance. Suggestions for applying the measure in future research are presented.

The STEP scale: a measure of short-term export performance improvement

This article is a direct response to a recent observation in the literature that managers appear to be short-term oriented in their assessment of the performance of an export venture (Madsen 1998). On the basis of a cross-national survey of exporting firms, the authors present a three-dimensional scale for assessing managerial judgment of short-term export performance (i.e., the STEP scale). The three dimensions are (1) satisfaction with short-term performance improvement, (2) short-term exporting intensity improvement, and (3) expected short-term performance improvement. The scale presents evidence of reliability as well as convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity, and it reveals factorial similarity and factorial equivalence across both samples. The authors outline managerial and public policy implications that stem from the scale and identify avenues for further export marketing research.

Voluntary export restraints between Britain and Japan: the case of the UK car market (1971–2002)

The rise in international markets of new, productive Japanese car manufacturers provoked intense world competition, which created serious doubts about the economic sustainability of an industry mostly dominated until the 1970s by European and North-American multinational companies. Ultimately, this crisis provoked a deep transformation of the industry, with consequences that had a permanent impact on European companies in the sector. American and later European manufacturers were successful in lobbying governments to provide protection. Using a rich source of data from the UK, I show that the ‘new trade policy’, voluntary export restraint (VER), placed on Japanese exports of new cars from 1977 to December 1999, was binding. This case study illustrates the strategies used by Japanese manufacturers to gain access to the European market through the UK market via strategic alliances and later through transplant production, against which continental European nation states were unable to fully insulate themselves. It is also shown that the policy had a profound effect on the nature of Japanese products, as Japanese firms responded to the quantity restraints by radically altering the product characteristics of their automobiles and shifting towards larger autos and new goods, to maximise their profits subject to the binding constraint.

Strategic trade policy, competition, and welfare: the case of voluntary export restraints between Britain and Japan (1971–2002)

I evaluate the voluntary export restraint placed on Japanese automobile exports from 1977 to 1999 by the UK. I show that the policy failed to assist the British domestic car industry. Instead, UK-based US multi-nationals and Japanese manufacturers were the primary beneficiaries, at a substantial cost to UK consumers. Whilst there are a number of caveats, the policy was on balance damaging to the UK economy in welfare terms.

Taxes, corruption, and entry

Tax policies and corruption are important institutional considerations which can shape entrepreneurship. We investigate how tax rates, and the interaction between corruption and tax rates, influence variations in entry across a panel of 72 countries in the period 2005–2011. We use a series of panel estimations as well as several robustness checks to test these effects, using relevant controls for economic development, the size of the state, and other regulatory and tax policy measures. We find that higher tax rates consistently discourage entry. Further, we find that although the direct influence of corruption on entry is also consistently negative, the interaction influence of corruption and tax rate is positive. This indicates that corruption can offset the negative influence of high taxes on entry. We discuss the implications of our findings for policymakers and future research.

The distributional and nutritional impacts and mitigation potential of emission-based food taxes in the UK

Agriculture and food production are responsible for a substantial proportion of greenhouse gas emissions. An emission based food tax has been proposed as one option to reduce food related emissions. This study introduces a method to measure the impacts of emission based food taxes at a household level which involves the use of data augmentation to account for the fact that the data record purchases and not consumption. The method is applied to determine the distributional and nutritional impacts of an emission based food tax across socio-economic classes in the UK. We find that a tax of £2.841/tCO2e on all foods would reduce food related emissions by 6.3% and a tax on foods with above average levels of emissions would reduce emissions by 4.3%. The tax burden falls disproportionately on households in the lowest socio-economic class because they tend to spend a larger proportion of their food expenditure on emission intensive foods and because they buy cheaper products and therefore experience relatively larger price increases.

Enhancing the distribution of Swedish tourism services on international markets : Possible export-ready criteria requisitioned by European tour operators

This paper identifies subjects which are relevant for Swedish suppliers of tourism services beforeapproaching foreign markets. Most suppliers are micro, small or medium sized companies anduse intermediaries, such as tour operators, for internationalization. The research considers theopinion of British and German tour operators, which require some criteria beforehand in orderto simplify both the initialization and the development of cooperation. Destination marketingorganizations (DMOs) are hereby the go-betweens since they not only represent small-scalesuppliers on international markets, but also initiate first encounters between suppliers and touroperators. Suppliers need to provide DMOs with accurate information in order to ensure thebest possible representation. After initializing collaboration, business relationships are sought todevelop in order to facilitate long-term cooperation. Proper preparation forms therefore the basefor strengthening the competitiveness of Swedish tourism prior approaching internationalmarkets. The enhancement of distributing Swedish tourism services on foreign markets appearedto be a profitable way to enable further growth, which is strongly limited on the domestic market.Increasing the export share therefore secures and further facilitates tourism’s valuablecontributions to the Swedish economy.

Land taxes in a Latin American context

Since Henry George (1839-1897) economists have been arguing that a tax on unimproved land is an ideal tax on efficiency grounds. Output taxes, on the other hand, have distortionary effects on the economy. This paper shows that under asymmetric information output taxes might be used along with land tax in order to implement an optimal taxation scheme in a Latin American context, i.e., where land rental markets are relatively thin, land property provides non-agricultural payoffs and there is nonrevenue objectives of land taxation. Also, the model has two implications that can be tested empirically: (i) there is evasion when schemes based only on land taxes are implemented; (ii) this evasion is more severe for large landholders.

Export-led recoveries in small open industrialized economies

This paper studies the role of Vertical Specialization-based trade and foreign damand push as elements capable of explaining export-led recoveries in small open industrialized economies. The empirical evidence on export-led recoveries is reviewed. Data supporting the growing importance of vertical specialization for international trade are presented. I compare the performance of two versions of a small open economy model, calibrated to mimic Canadian Business Cycles. The …rst one is based upon Schmitt-Grohe(1998). The second incorporates Vertical- Specialization-based trade. I show that an arti…cial economy featuring Vertical-Specializationbased trade in conjunction with an exogenous AR(2) process for foreign output displays improved impulse responses to a foreign output shock and is able to mimic the contribution of Canadian exports to output growth during economic recoveries.

The optimality of the Friedman rule when some distorting taxes are exogenous

This paper investigates the optimality of the Friedman rule in a two-sector small open economy. That policy prescription is found to be a necessary condition for Pareto efficiency. If a planner can select all conceivable distorting taxes, then, for some initial values of public debt, money balances and foreign assets, it is possible to decentralize a Pareto efficient allocation. If the planner can select only some of these tax rates, then second-best policies may also satisfy the Friedman rule. However, this last result depends on the set of tax instruments the planner can choose from.

WTO-plus commitments on the elimination of export duties: evidence of a two-tier membership?

This descriptive paper examines the prevalence of ‘WTO-plus’ commitments in accession protocols of newly acceded Members, with a focus on commitments on the elimination of export duties. It presents preliminary results of a mapping exercise carried out with respect to these commitments and seeks to answer two questions. First, can any general conclusions be drawn as to the prevalence of these commitments or are they, per definition, country-specific. Second, has the political nature of the WTO accession process allowed for the creation of a two-tier membership. The first question is answered by relying on data gathered as part of the ongoing PhD-research project conducted by the author. The project aims to construct a typology of WTO-plus commitments to allow for a more detailed analysis of the relationship between these commitments and the baseline obligations in the covered agreements. The accession of China to the WTO is commonly considered as the prime example of the inclusion of WTO-plus obligations in accession protocols. The paper tries to answer the question whether this particular accession was truly unique in nature, or whether the inclusion of “Plus” obligations is less exceptional than often assumed. Additionally, the accession protocols of other recently acceded-Members are examined to establish whether the hypothesis holds. In the PhD-research project this comparative methodology will also be applied to map WTO-plus commitments in other areas, such as anti-dumping and transparency. The second question will be answered in two stages. In a preliminary stage, international institutional law will be used to by analyzing the way in which the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body has dealt with this type of WTO-plus commitment in its jurisprudence. The second stage deals with the question of hierarchy: Accession Protocols are negotiated with the WTO Membership, by each country willing to accede to the WTO. This poses questions as to their exact position in the system of WTO law. To establish whether evidence of a two-tier membership is present, one first has to turn back to the question whether Accession Protocols are a separate (or independent) legal instrument or an “integral part” of the WTO system of covered agreements. If newly acceded Members do not benefit from the general exceptions in order to balance their more stringent, WTO-plus, obligations, this may support the conclusion that the membership of the World Trade Organization is becoming, in fact, two-tiered.

Brazilian competitiveness on international trade

In recent years, Brazil benefited from foreign trade expansion and its exports of goods grew by 16.5%. If this strong growth trend keeps up for the next years, today’s bottlenecks may have a negative impact on the competitiveness of the country’s products in the global market. This is especially critical for one of the main “green fuels” producers in a scenario where the demand for this energy source grows due to rising oil prices and environmental concerns. Based on a survey that collected data from 250 Brazilian exporters, this study focuses on the constraints that reduce the competitiveness of exports. This study differs from previous ones in that it considers the professionals directly involved with export activities and evaluates different aspects, including logistics, operations, taxes, legal, bureaucratic and informational ones. Results show that the most important constraints strongly affect costs and delivery reliability