Michele Santoni

Foreign Direct Investment and Wage Bargaining

We derive the sub-game perfect Nash equilibria for the foreign direct investment (FDI) game played between two unionised firms. Among other results, we show that FDI is less likely, ceteris paribus, the greater is union bargaining power, the stronger the weight the union attaches to wages, and the more substitutable are firms’ products in the potential host country. We derive results concerning the conditions under which FDI will be reciprocal. We also examine conditions under which the FDI game between firms will possess the characteristics of a Prisoners’ Dilemma. Finally, we consider the possibility that firms might delegate wage determination to unions as a method of strategic deterrence against entry by FDI.

Specific Excise Taxation in a Unionized Differentiated Duopoly

This article considers the incidence and welfare effects of a specific excise tax in a unionized duopoly model with differentiated products, linear demand and cost curves, and wage bargaining. The article allows for both Cournot and Bertrand competition. The article shows that unionization lowers the degree of undershifting of the tax on the producers net price, the marginal increase in the consumers price, and the employment loss. The excess burden of an equal revenue tax is higher with a unionized labor market and higher with Cournot than Bertrand competition. Unionization increases the optimal output subsidy with wage bargaining.

Ambiguity and Partisan Business Cycles

We introduce ambiguity (Knightian uncertainty) into a stripped-down version of Alesinas (1987) partisan model of the business cycle. We show that, if the private sectors subjective expectations of future events are ambiguous, there is the possibility of a political business cycle, even when the parties running for the election have similar preferences for inflation and unemployment. In particular, if inflation is perceived as a loss, then the larger the fraction of the population that is ambiguity-prone (-averse), the larger is the postelection boom (slump), with unemployment then returning back to its natural level. We also show that, for given parties preferences, ambiguity proneness (aversion) implies smaller (larger) fluctuations in the unemployment around its natural level when the right-wing party wins the elections. (Keywords: Ambiguity, Ellsbergs paradox, Partisan theory of the business cycle, Unemployment)

Fiscal Policy and Welfare in a Small Open Economy with Imperfect Competition

This paper considers the effects of fiscal policy in a two-sector small open economy, with unionized labour markets, and heterogeneous types of imperfect competition in the product markets. By making the marginal propensity to import endogenous, the paper shows that there is no robust or general relationship between the balanced-budget multiplier and the degree of imperfect competition. The fiscal multiplier with distortionary taxes can be positive or negative, depending on the size of the importables sector and the foreign firms market share. The normative rule for fiscal policy depends on the size of the fiscal multiplier. An increase in economic activity is insufficient by itself to induce the government to over-supply public goods relative to the Walrasian case. Copyright 1999 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the Board of Trustees of the Bulletin of Economic Research

An Imperfectly Competitive Open Economy with Sequential Bargaining in the Labour Market

We consider a three sector small open economy, with a monopolistic non-traded sector, a competitive traded good sector, and a capital goods sector. In both the consumer good sectors, there are enterprise unions that bargain sequentially over wages and employment as in Manning (1987). This approach encompasses the standard monopoly union, right to manage and efficient bargain models. We consider first the effects of bargaining strengths at each stage on overall macroeconomic equilibrium. Here we find strong general equilibrium spillover effects: bargaining strengths in one sector affecting the other sectors. Second, we consider the influence of the bargaining process on the welfare analysis of fiscal policy.

Decentralized Fiscal Policy in an Imperfectly Competitive Federal Economy

This paper analyzes the efficacy and desirability of decentralized fiscal policies, in a two-region federal economy, with monopolistic competition in local product markets, unionized local labor markets, and a nationwide competitive sector. Local governments are utilitarian and use balanced-budget policies to provide public goods in their own region. They also may be subjected to constitutional limits to public spending, taking the form of cash-planning. In this case, unilateral fiscal policies increase price and possible wage mark-ups, yielding crowding out and employment losses in the other region. Uncoordinated local policies lead to overexpansion. The central government should intervene to encourage coordination. Copyright 1997 by Blackwell Publishers Ltd and The Victoria University of Manchester

Discriminatory Procurement Policy with Cash Limits

This paper presents a counterexample to the Miyagiwa ((1991) American Economic Review 81, 1320–1328) claim that discriminatory government procurement policy is ineffective as a protectionist device, when the goods are also consumed by the private sector. The procurement sector is a homogeneous product Cournot–Nash duopoly, with a home and a foreign firm. The procurement policy takes the form of an ad valorem premium over the import price. If both the firms play the output game in strategic complements, procurement policy can lower imports. This possibility arises when the product demand is unit elastic, corresponding to cash limits to public expenditure, and providing the home firm is smaller than the foreign firm. By adding a competitive export sector, the paper also derives sufficient conditions for macroeconomic coordination failures to occur.