Group 6: FDI and Corporate Taxation

David Candon
Andrew O'Brien
David Fleming
Joseph Slowey
Nigel Shekelton

informal overview
So, as the title suggests we are looking at the sensitivities (elasticities) of US FDI to corporate tax rate differences across the EU-15 and over time. We both want to assess what country specific differences affect the choices that US companies make when allocating capital, and whether these choices have become more sensitive over time. The dependent variable will be total dollar capital invested per country for a calendar year, for manufacturing firms only. This data is readily available at the BEA. The dependent tax variable should be some nominal statutory tax rate. The academic literature seems to use an average effective taxt rate, but they have access to tax files and have time to sift through these. We have neither, so we will just go for a broader rate. Further explanatory variables will be country-specific variables such as, population, dependancy ratios, ratio of fluent english speakers, gdp relative to US, exhange rate to US, openess, and finally the data from the Global Competivness Survey, which will offer great insight into why (or not) CEOs choose to invest in certain countries. We think that some qualitative variables (or perhaps quantitative) could be of some use here, particularly ones about instiutional quality (business laws) and infrastructure (Ireland doesnt fare well here, for example). We will be taking three cross-sections at years 1994, 2000 and 2005. This captures three periods from the start of the EMU until the asscession nations joined. We will be attempting a panel data model, although we have some questions on this

Group 5: Swedish Labour Force

Anthony O'Callaghan
Chiara Dazzeo
Cormac O'Sullivan

Group 4: Chinese Exchange Rates

Kuiying Pan
Gavin Marrin
Sun Meng
Arvydas Vidpiunas


This project will in fact look at exports from China to the US. My strong advice is to now look at recent economics papers in this area and to decide on a sensible specification.

One reference from a paper from Peking University is here

A nice paper on the role of exchange rates is here

Group 3: WellBeing

Debbie Kelly
Rory Breslin
Patrick Rowe
Adrian Byrne
Kate Bunworth

(i) An interesting econometric analysis of quality of life in europe is given in the paper below

http://ideas.repec.org/a/eaa/aeinde/v8y2008i2_5.html

(ii) The key people in this literature in economics are Daniel Kahneman, Bruno Frey, Andrew Oswald, David Blanchflower, Richard Layard, Rafael DiTella, Robert McCullough. I will send some more.

(iii) The reading list for a lecture I give on this is below

reading list

(iv) I strongly advise you to nail this down very early. Look at one key factor with real relevance for economics.

Group 2: Finance

Conor King
Eoin Weigel
Karl Naughton
Conall Scollard

Group 1: Unemployment Duration

Keith Cassidy
Ide Bradley
John McQuinn
Rory McMonagle
Daire McCoy
Leon Fernandez-Brennan

(i) This is an interesting topic

(ii) Don't worry so much about the comparison to Ireland unless you think there is some particular reason why Ireland is interesting

(iii) Nail down your question very quickly.

(iv) A very heavily cited paper on this using a natural experiment is below

http://ideas.repec.org/p/lvl/laeccr/9708.html

(v) Some other papers are below

http://ftp.iza.org/dp2280.pdf

Blanchard has a lot of papers on this including the following

Labour Supply Group

Lorainne Conroy: lorainne.conroy@ucdconnect.ie
Óisín Kenny: okenny2@yahoo.com
Sineád Lee: kindaweird_2@hotmail.com
Marc Curran: marc_curran9@hotmail.com


This project examines the determinants of labour supply in European countries, in particular focusing on the determinants of overtime working

Additional Information

The European Social Survey is below. Look at the 2004/2005 questionnaire. This has abundant information on labour supply for 22 countries and the data is fully available.

http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/

Some Literature

See below for some examples of papers that examine the determinants of labour supply (we can add to this)

Labour Supply, Health and Caring: Evidence from the UK [3.719%] Madden, D. & Walker, I. (1999)