Armando José Garcia Pires

Capital Taxation and Imperfect Competition: ACE vs. CBIT

This paper sets up an imperfect-competition model of a small open economy, and undertakes a welfare comparison of the Corporate Business Income Tax (CBIT) and the Allowance for Corporate Equity tax (ACE). A main result is that a small open economy should levy a positive source tax on capital in a market with free firm entry. Our analysis also shows that the well known neutrality property of the ACE tax is no longer true when firms are mobile and can enter the market. Which tax system is better from a welfare point of view, CBIT or ACE, is shown to depend on assumptions about production technology and entry.

Media diversity, advertising, and adaptation of news to readers’ political preferences

In this paper, it is analyzed how advertising can affect media diversity when news firms can adapt news to readers’ political preferences. In particular, in the model news firms can choose between a single- and a multi-ideology strategy (a point on the Hotelling line and a line segment, respectively). It is shown that the size of the advertising market is determinant for the equilibrium of the news market. When the advertising market is small, news firms maximally differentiate their political offers and do not adapt news to readers’ political preferences (single-ideology strategy). When the advertising market is large, news firms minimally differentiate their political offers and do adapt news to readers’ political preferences (multi-ideology strategy).

Beyond Trade Costs: Firms' Endogenous Access to International Markets

In this paper, we explore another factor besides trade costs that can affect firms’ exports: strategic interaction between firms in R&D investment. Three results can be highlighted. First, the volume of trade is higher in the presence of R&D than in the absence of it, given that R&D reduces marginal costs. Second, like with reductions in trade costs, international trade grows with increases in the return on R&D, since technological progress enhances firms’ competitiveness. Third, when firms differ in commitment power in R&D, the R&D leader plays strategically in R&D in order to become more competitive and to be more active in international markets than the R&D follower.

International trade and competitiveness

We analyze the role of international market size differences in determining the investment in process R&D (and thus firms’ competitiveness) in a trade model with oligopolistic market structure, non-homothetic production technology and costly trade. We show that the R&D effort is higher (or even disproportionately so) for firms in the larger market, which causes endogenous asymmetries across countries. As a result, firms in the larger market have higher competitiveness, which increases their market shares in international markets. Furthermore, and contrary to what is predicted by Krugman (Am Econ Rev 70:950–959, 1980) “home market effect”, in equilibrium the larger country does not need to host a disproportionately higher share of the world’s industry than of the world’s demand. Despite this, the larger country can still continue to run a trade surplus in the oligopolistic sector, since it hosts firms with higher competitiveness than firms in the smaller country.

Multinationals, R&D and Endogenous Productivity Asymmetries

Abstract We analyze the influence of endogenous productivity asymmetries between firms, in terms of competitiveness and size, on multinational activity. In the model, productivity depends on cost-reducing R&D (research and development). We show that when firms differ on commitment power in R&D, the R&D leader, independently of being a multinational or a domestic firm, tends to invest more in R&D than the R&D follower. Because of these productivity advantages, the R&D leader can more easily become multinational. Therefore, in addition to the proximity-concentration trade-off, we identify another FDI (foreign direct investment) determinant: technological competition.We analyze the influence of endogenous productivity asymmetries between firms, in terms of competitiveness and size, on multinational activity. In the model, productivity depends on cost-reducing R&D (research and development). We show that when firms differ on commitment power in R&D, the R&D leader, independently of being a multinational or a domestic firm, tends to invest more in R&D than the R&D follower. Because of these productivity advantages, the R&D leader can more easily become multinational. Therefore, in addition to the proximity-concentration trade-off, we identify another FDI (foreign direct investment) determinant: technological competition.