2,376 research outputs found
Fighting Poverty, Profitably: Transforming the Economics of Payments to Build Sustainable, Inclusive Financial Systems
The Gates Foundation's Financial Services for the Poor program (FSP) believes that effective financial services are paramount in the fight against poverty. Nonetheless, today more than 2 billion people live outside the formal financial sector. Increasing their access to high quality, affordable financial services will accelerate the well-being of households, communities, and economies in the developing world. One of the most promising ways to deliver these financial services to the poor -- profitably and at scale -- is by using digital payment platforms.These are the conclusions we have reached as the result of extensive research in pursuit of one of the Foundation's primary missions: to give the world's poorest people the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty.FSP conducted this research because we believe that there is a gap in the fact base and understanding of how payment systems can extend digital services to low income consumers in developing markets. This is a complex topic, with fragmented information and a high degree of country-by-country variability. A complete view across the entire payment system has been missing, limiting how system providers, policy makers, and regulators (groups we refer to collectively as financial inclusion stakeholders) evaluate decisions and take actions. With a holistic view of the payment system, we believe that interventions can have higher impact, and stakeholders can better understand and address the ripple effects that changes to one part of the system can have. In this report, we focus on the economics of payment systems to understand how they can be transformed to serve poor people in a way that is profitable and sustainable in aggregate
Growth, Integration and Spillovers in the Central and East European Software Industry
This paper explores growth and competitive advantage in CEE software firms; it looks at the role of strategic partnerships and industry (spillover) effects. The empirical analysis is based on survey data from 224 software firms from six CEE countries (Bulgaria, Czech R, Estonia, Serbia, Slovenia, Romania). The results of the descriptive analysis are interpreted from the perspective of the role of capabilities in industrial development. The analysis shows that the patterns of growth are a mix of sector, region and sub--region specific determinants and show important national differences. This suggests that the CEE software industry cannot be considered as a homogenous phenomenon. There is no general tendency towards an expansion in exports; based on our sample only Romania is developing an export oriented software industry. Research shows that the CEE software industry is populated by young, dedicated, domestic firms, which are independent, and privately owned and which are mainly oriented towards localisation of software. They are strongly dependent for trade and production on alliances and strategic partnerships with foreign partners and a small share of technology based partnerships. There is an extensive process of industry upgrading underway, involving country and sub-region specific changes. The spillover effects are significant, through links with clients and intensive intra-industry knowledge transfer through high employment turnover and potentially high knowledge transfer from foreign to local projects. Differences between central and eastern Europe are strong in terms of degree of diversification of software supply, industrial upgrading and quality of demand. The pattern of software development in CEE differs from that in other emerging markets in the sense that it is domestic market oriented, but with an emerging export market for services. Its further growth and upgrading will be strongly dependent on the acquisition of organisational capabilities by local firms
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Taking the paper out of news: A case study of Taloussanomat, Europe's first online-only newspaper
Using in-depth interviews, newsroom observation, and internal documents, this case study presents and analyses changes that have taken place at Finnish financial daily Taloussanomat since it stopped printing on 28 December 2007 to focus exclusively on digital delivery via the Web, email, and mobile. It reveals the savings that can be achieved when a newspaper no longer prints and distributes a physical product; but also the revenue lost from subscriptions and print advertising. The consequences of a newspaper's decision to go online-only are examined as they relate to its business model, website traffic, and editorial practice. The findings illustrate the extent to which the medium rather than the content it carries determines news consumption patterns, show the differing attention a newspaper and its online substitute command, and reveal the changes to working patterns journalists can expect in the online-only environment
Trade Taxes Are Expensive
This paper examines the welfare implications of trade reforms in the presence of a government budget constraint. There is consensus about gains from opening up to trade. The less investigated question is, whether a coordinated tax reform, where the tariff revenue cuts are compensated with increases in distortionary domestic taxes, will still be welfare improving or not. Are trade taxes an expensive tool to raise the necessary revenue for governments? This paper uses a CGE model to generate “Marginal Cost of Funds” (MCF) figures for 32 countries to answer this question. The results suggest that there are significant welfare gains from further trade liberalization, especially for developing countries.Trade Liberalization, Tax Reform, Welfare Gain, Marginal Cost of Funds (MCF), Computable General Equilibrium Model (CGE)
There's No Place Like Home: The Profitability Gap between Headquarters and their Foreign Subsidiaries
Using a large panel data set for European firms, this paper provides evidence that operations at multinational headquarters are significantly more profitable than perations at their foreign subsidiaries. The effect turns out to be robust and quantitatively large. Our findings suggest that the profitability gap is partly driven by agency costs which arise if value-driving functions are managed by a subsidiary that is geographically separated from the headquarters management. In line with falling communication and travel costs over the last decade, the profitability gap is shown to decline over time. Apart from that, our results indicate that a higher competitiveness of multinational firms in their home markets also contributes to the profitability gap. We discuss various implications of our findings
Achieving World Trade Organization Compliance for Export Processing Zones While Maintaining Economic Competitiveness for Developing Countries
Export processing zones (EPZs) are statutorily created investment parks that developing countries establish to attract foreign investment in exchange for government-granted fiscal incentives. At their core, EPZs are a quid pro quo between host governments and investor companies: in exchange for the promise of job creation, technological transfer, economic development, and compliance with export performance requirements, investor companies receive substantial fiscal incentives, such as tax and tariff exemptions.
Most EPZ statutes are inconsistent with Article 3.1(a) of the World Trade Organization\u27s Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM Agreement) because EPZ incentives qualify as prohibited export subsidies. Fortunately, many developing countries have received exemptions from this prohibition to maintain their EPZ systems. The exemptions, however, are set to permanently expire for many countries on December 31, 2015, spurring the need for EPZ reform.
This Note proposes a framework for achieving WTO-compliance for EPZ statutes by conditioning EPZ incentives on an investor company\u27s implementation of standards of corporate social responsibility. This proposal will permit developing countries to maintain fiscal incentives—thus helping preserve their economic competitiveness as attractive destinations for foreign investment—while also offsetting potential harm that the mandatory elimination of EPZ export requirements may cause to developing-country industries
Will corporate tax consolidation improve efficiency in the EU?
Consolidation of the tax base in the European Union is expected to curve compliance costs and reduce profit shifting. A number of proposals for consolidation from the European Commission are simulated with the applied general equilibrium model CORTAX. We show that the benefits from consolidation are offset by two weaknesses in the proposals for a common consolidated tax base. Formula apportionment, which is needed to allocate the consolidated taxable profits across jurisdictions, creates new tax planning possibilities for MNEs and allows them to benefit from existing tax rate differentials in the European Union. In addition, it triggers tax competition as member states may attract foreign investment by reducing their tax rates. The second distortion is an unlevel playing field, which is introduced if only part of the firms participate in the consolidation. The gains from consolidation can be fully grasped if it is obliged for all firms and if it is accompanied by a harmonisation of the tax rate.
International expansion plan of Softfinança to the United States of America
The following document answers where SoftFinança (SF), a Portuguese software development
company, should expand its product, “SoftPayments”. With Covid-19 increasing adoption of
digital financing, many may assume that most global markets could provide the company with
immense opportunities. However, to truly identify a suitable market, the report conducts an
internal and market assessment to understand the firm’s current situation and potential. With
this information, a joint venture expansion into Luxemburg was identified as having the highest
potential for SF, while a marketing analysis found that targeting affluent families would lead to
the highest returns.
The individual work project aims first to comprehend the literature behind the “International
Market Selection”, taking into considerations the different methods followed by companies.
Then, analyzing in depth the United States’ market allows to decide if it would be a good fit for
SoftFinança’s internationalization. The country is firstly examined through a general point of
view while going specifically afterward with considerations about possible contacts and
organizations to deal with during the expansion and a description of both the competition and
the company and the market’s sales potential. Finally, recommendations for the best entry mode
are provided
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