Returns on FDI: Does the U.S. Really Do Better?

According to the U.S. external accounts, U.S. investors earn a significantly higher rate of return on their foreign investments than foreigners earn in the United States. This continued strong performance has produced a positive net investment income balance despite the deterioration in the U.S. net asset position in recent years. We examine the major competing explanations for the apparent differential between the rates of return. In particular, almost the entire difference occurs in FDI, where American firms operating abroad appear to earn a persistently higher return than that earned by foreign firms operating in the U.S. We first review a number of explanations in the literature for this differential. We then offer some new evidence on the role of income shifting between jurisdictions with varying rates of taxation. Using country-specific income and tax data, we find that about one-third of the excess return earned by U.S. corporations abroad can be explained by firms reporting "extra" income in low tax jurisdictions of their affiliates.

Grindr Users Take More Risks, but Are More Open to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Pre-exposure Prophylaxis: Could This Dating App Provide a Platform for HIV Prevention Outreach?

BackgroundTechnology has changed the way that men who have sex with men (MSM) seek sex. More than 60% of MSM in the United States use the internet and/or smartphone-based geospatial networking apps to find sex partners. We correlated use of the most popular app (Grindr) with sexual risk and prevention behavior among MSM.MethodsA nested cohort study was conducted between September 2018 and June 2019 among MSM receiving community-based human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and sexually transmitted infection (STI) screening in central San Diego. During the testing encounter, participants were surveyed for demographics, substance use, risk behavior (previous 3 months), HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use, and Grindr usage. Participants who tested negative for HIV and who were not on PrEP were offered immediate PrEP.ResultsThe study included 1256 MSM, 1090 of whom (86.8%) were not taking PrEP. Overall, 580 of 1256 (46%) participants indicated that they used Grindr in the previous 7 days. Grindr users reported significantly higher risk behavior (greater number of male partners and condomless sex) and were more likely to test positive for chlamydia or gonorrhea (8.6% vs 4.7% of nonusers; P = .005). Grindr users were also more likely to be on PrEP (18.7% vs 8.7% of nonusers; P < .001) and had fewer newly diagnosed HIV infections (9 vs 26 among nonusers; P = .014). Grindr users were also nearly twice as likely as nonusers to initiate PrEP (24.6% vs 14%; P < .001).ConclusionsGiven the higher risk behavior and greater acceptance of PrEP among MSM who used Grindr, Grindr may provide a useful platform to promote HIV and STI testing and increase PrEP uptake

A categorial grammar of Spanish auxiliary chains

Spanish auxiliary sequences as in Juan puede haber tenido que estar empezando a trabajar hasta tarde 'Juan may have had to be starting to work until late', traditionally termed auxiliary chains, have two properties that are not naturally captured in phrase-structure approaches to syntax: (i) they follow no a priori fixed order; auxiliary permutations have different meanings, none of which is any more basic than any other (cf. Juan puede estar trabajando 'Juan may be working' and Juan está pudiendo trabajar 'Juan is currently able to work'); and (ii) the syntactic and semantic relations established within a chain go beyond strict monotonicity or cumulative influence; rather, they present different kinds of syntactic relations in distinct local domains. We show that an alternative to syntax grounded in a modification of the categorial grammar introduced in Ajdukiewicz (1935) that closely follows Montague (1973), Dowty (1978, 1979, 2003), and Schmerling (1983a, b, 2019) provides effective tools for subsuming Spanish auxiliary chains in an explicit and explanatory grammar

Leonora Carrington/Lucy Skaer

The output is a curated exhibition and catalogue of Viktor Wynd's impressive collection of Leonora Carrington artworks.This collection is macabre as it is unique, bringing together little-known prints and drawings which detail the surrealist bestiary of Carrington’s imaginative universe (explored further by Marina Warner), as well as four early canvases from Carrington’s pre-surrealist period (analysed in- depth by Susan L. Aberth). An anecdote by Wynd and short story by Carrington’s son, Gabriel Weisz, further nuance the visual narratives under consideration. Until this exhibition, the collection had never been shown together. Leeds Arts University hosted the collection as a major part of its Leonora Carrington/Lucy Skaer research exhibition (15 July – 2 September 2016). The artworks included in the catalogue toured subsequently to The Viktor Wynd Museum in London. Special thanks go to Viktor Wynd for his enthusiasm, generosity and support in realising the exhibition as well as Susan L. Aberth, Gabriel Weisz Carrington, and Marina Warner for their erudite contributions to the catalogue. The photography is by Chris Renton and the catalogue has been designed by D&M Heritage Ltd. Further grateful thanks and acknowledgement to: Chloe Aridjis, Jonathan P. Eburne, Sean Kissane, Lynn Lu, Steve Lucas, Wendi Norris, Jeffrey Sherwin, Lucy Skaer, Samantha Sweeting, and colleagues at Leeds College of Art

Towards voluntary tax compliance: Understanding the impact of altruistic and egocentric orientation / Susan Hydra Sikayu … [et al.]

Tax is one of the main sources of revenue for a country. Therefore, a sustainable contribution of tax revenue is crucial for a nation to prosper. Yet, the conundrum as to why taxpayers comply voluntarily, while, others resent from paying taxes is still unresolved. Hitherto, the conventional economic deterrent approach has failed to clearly explain this gap. Hence, the social psychology approach is explored in examining the taxpayers’ attitude. This study evaluates the taxpayers’ altruistic and egocentric oriented attitudes. Herein, these attitudes were examined for their corresponding relationship with taxpayers’ voluntary compliance. Survey questionnaires were distributed to the individual taxpayers of Malaysia using convenience sampling. Subsequently, 244 useable questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS and Smart PLS 3. The results revealed that the altruistic group was significantly happier and had a better attitude towards tax compliance. More importantly, altruistic orientation was significantly associated with taxpayers’ compliance. These findings highlighted the importance of imparting altruistic prosocial value within the education system and the society at large, in nurturing voluntary tax compliance

Geometric algebras on projective surfaces

Let X be a projective surface, let \sigma be an automorphism of X, and let L be a \sigma-ample invertible sheaf on X. We study the properties of a family of subrings, parameterized by geometric data, of the twisted homogeneous coordinate ring B(X, L, \sigma). In particular, we find necessary and sufficient conditions for these subrings to be noetherian. We also study their homological properties, their associated noncommutative projective schemes, and when they are maximal orders. In the process, we produce new examples of maximal orders; these are graded and have the property that no Veronese subring is generated in degree 1. Our results are used in a companion paper to give defining data for a large class of noncommutative projective surfaces.Comment: 39 pages; v2 results largely unchanged, but notation describing algebras revised significantly. As a result details of many proofs have changed, and statements of some results. To appear in Journal of Algebr