This paper examines currency substitution in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Romania during the end of central planning and transition to market economies. Before liberalization, central European economies faced increasing shortage and repressed inflation in the official sector. Households held substantial wealth in real assets and foreign currency. Furthermore, part of their savings was held as hunting money against potential opportunities to buy in bulk at bargain prices in official stores or pay a premium price on the black market. The shift from centrally-planned to market economies is modeled with a shortage variable. Foreign currency demand and consumption functions are estimated by the Johansen procedure. Environmental constraints play a key role in interpreting estimates. The official sector shortage is an important determinant of foreign currency demand in each country. (JEL F31, F41;Int'l Advances in Econ. Res. 7(3): pp. 275-95 Aug. 01. ©All Rights Reserved)

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The primary aim of this research is to identify to which extent alternative ways of savings are treated differently by the Spanish personal income tax before and after the tax reform of 1998. The proposed measure for appraising savings tax neutrality is based on the methodology of effective tax rates, originally developed by King and Fullerton [1983a, 1983b] and adapted to the Spanish case by González-Páramo [1991, 1995] and González-Páramo and Badenes [1999]. In light of the results, support is found for the expected lack of neutrality under the 18/91 law and the 40/98 law. However, in the savings taxation arena, it is possible to appreciate a trend toward greater doses of simplicity and neutrality as means of a closer treatment between capital income and capital gains returns. (JEL H24; Int'l Advances in Econ. Res. 7(3): pp. 296-309 Aug. 01. ©All Rights Reserved)

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Traditional neoclassical production theory analyzes the relationship in a production process between inputs and outputs which have a positive market value for the producer. The externalities of production, which have nonpositive market values, are discarded or included as the cost in a cost function. This paper studies the relationship between biological oxygen demand (BOD) emissions, an output of nonpositive value, and traditional factors of production, that is, investments, labor, output, and raw materials. An emissions production function is theoretically presented and empirically estimated with data from the Finnish pulp and paper industry. The approach is based on the observation that it is the minimization of effluents rather than, or together with, the maximization of yields, that increasingly defines the technological frontier of production processes. The empirical function estimation demonstrates the validity of the proposed novel modeling approach. (JEL O40, Q20; Int'l Advances in Econ. Res. 7(3): pp. 310-26 Aug. 01. ©All Rights Reserved)

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This paper presents a model in which technological progress affects the productivity of the financial sector. When technological progress moves quicky, the financial intermediation costs are low, which increases the incentives to invest in new technology. This feedback process involves two types of long-run equilibria: one with low financial intermediation costs and high growth, and the other with high financial intermediation costs and low growth. These divergences in growth rates among countries hold even in the presence of international capital markets with free capital mobility, a very unusual result in the endogenous growth literature. (JEL E13, F21, F43, O16, O30, O41 Int'l Advances in Econ. Res. 7(3): pp. 2327-336 Aug. 01. ©All Rights Reserved)

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This paper proposes an alternative framework for examining the international macroeconomic impact of domestic monetary and fiscal policies and focuses on the distinction between national spending and national production and the reactive behavior of foreign investors to changing external account balances. It demonstrates that under a floating exchange rate regime, monetary and fiscal policies can affect aggregate expenditure and output quite differently, with important implications for the behavior of the exchange rate, the current account balance, and national income in the short run, as well as the economy's price level in the long run. In particular, this paper predicts that expansionary monetary and fiscal policies tend to depreciate the currency and only temporarily raise gross domestic product and the current account surplus, although permanently raise the domestic price level. (JEL F32, F41;Int'l Advances in Econ. Res. 7(3): pp. 337-44 Aug. 01. ©All Rights Reserved)

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of export-growth linkage in India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand on the basis of time series data from 1973 to 1993. The empirical results indicate that exports have a positive and significant impact on economic growth when a country has achieved some level of economic development. The result also signifies the importance of liberal market policies by pursuing export expansion strategies and by attracting foreign investments. (JEL F4; Int'l Advances in Econ. Res. 7(3): pp. 345-50 Aug. 01. ©All Rights Reserved)

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Society has high expectations concerning accounting professionals. More than ever, accountants need professional values and ethics that allow them to operate successfully and with integrity in a changing world. This study is a first attempt to understand the ethical evaluations, intentions, and orientations of accounting professionals and students from Latin American countries. Another objective is to validate the multidimensional ethics scale used by Cohen et al. [1998] in an international setting. The results did not validate such a scale but offer interesting findings about the Latin American sample. In such a context, ethics appear to be a collective concern guided by a different concept of equity. The results indicate that the respondents consider justice a superior value over what is considered correct, acceptable, or good. (JEL R42; Int'l Advances in Econ. Res. 7(3): pp. 351-64 Aug. 01. ©All Rights Reserved)

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Copyright © International Atlantic Economic Society, May 2001

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Publication does not necessarily represent approval, concurrence, or official endorsement of the statements and opinions herein by the International Atlantic Economic Society. Publication number: ISSN 1083-0898.

Suggested Citation
International Advances in Economic Research, Volume 7, Number 3, August 2001