Suchergebnisse

Introduction -- Capital explosion -- Tax cut revolution -- Flat tax club -- Mobile brains and mobile wealth -- Taxing businesses in the global economy -- The economics of tax competition -- The battle for freedom and competition -- The moral case for tax competition -- Options for U.S. policy

In 2020, EU companies imported intermediate products worth 2.4 trillion euros, which made up more than half of total merchandise imports of the EU. Compared to the pre-crisis year 2019, imports of intermediates decreased by 13 percent, partly driven by the lower fuel prices. A detailed analysis of trade in value added shows that in most EU countries more than half of the imported intermediate products come from other EU member states. Extra-EU sources of value added in domestic final demand and exports are particularly important in the smaller economies like Luxembourg and Malta, but also in the biggest EU member states Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Among the Non-EU countries, especially the USA, UK, China, and Russia contribute substantially in terms of value added to the production process of EU member states. The USA are the most important source of value added outside the EU for several countries like Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Spain, etc. The UK is the top non-EU-provider of value added for Cyprus. China delivers the largest share of non-EU value added in some countries from Central and Eastern Europe like Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Poland. Russia is particularly important for the Baltic countries, Bulgaria and Slovakia. Among the EU member states, Germany is the most important source of value added for the domestic final demand and exports in most of the other EU countries - notable exceptions are Belgium and Ireland, where more value added comes from France than from Germany. The corona crisis has revealed the fragility of global value chains. Industries are increasingly and asymmetrically connected with each other. Value chains were internationalized to achieve efficiency and economies of scale. Outsourcing, offshoring and lean production lines with low inventory stocks, however, have made the European economy vulnerable to disruptions and shortages of supply chains. A disruption caused by an event such as the corona crisis can propagate along supply chains affecting direct and indirect suppliers as well as customers of disaster-stricken firms. Hence, the perceived trade-off between low prices of intermediate products and the increased risk of being dependent on complex global supply chains has gained new attention in the context of the pandemic. European policymakers are thus calling for a larger role of reshoring in some industries. However, the actual size and dimensions of reshoring in Europe and Germany in the past have been limited as this is only one of many possible strategies to increase resilience of value chains. This indicates a misalignment between the perspective of companies and priorities of policy makers. The design of the value chain network is a matter of economic decision-making and a potential structural change can only be initiated by companies in the course of reassessing the above-mentioned trade-off and of reconsidering the risks of international supply chains. Besides reshoring, other potential measures to increase resilience concern the diversification of supply chains, increasing stockkeeping, or adjusting delivery times. In terms of economic policy, state interventions are only reasonable for industries producing essentials (e.g. certain medicines or personal protective equipment). However, it is crucial that supply chains, which are already disrupted, are not further affected by additional trade conflicts. Protectionist measures covered in the strategy of restructuring supply chains motivated by the current crisis hence entail the danger of reversing the achievements in trade liberalization and specialization of the last decades.

Das neue Emissionsreduktionziel der EU von 55 Prozent gegenüber 1990 erfordert den Hochlauf von umfassenden, kostspieligen Technologieinvestitionen zur Dekarbonisierung der Industrie. Gleichzeitig unterliegen erst knapp 20 Prozent der weltweiten Emissionen einer direkten CO2-Bepreisung (World Bank, 2020) und die regionalen CO2-Preise liegen meist unter dem europäi-schen Zertifikatspreis. Damit die Transformation der europäischen Industrie weiterhin mit ei-nem international konkurrenzfähigen Produktionsstandort Europa vereinbar ist, sind zuneh-mende Wettbewerbsnachteile für europäische Hersteller und das steigende Risiko einer Verla-gerung der Produktion und der Emissionen an außereuropäische Standorte (Carbon Leakage) einzudämmen. Im Rahmen ihres Green Deals plant die EU-Kommissionen dazu einen Grenzaus-gleich (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, CBAM) auf Emissionen von importieren Indust-rieprodukten, wenn diese aus Regionen mit geringerem CO2-Preisniveau stammen (EC, 2019). Die Einführung eines Grenzausgleichsmechanismus wird handelspolitische Implikationen mit sich bringen. Sollten die Handelspartner die Grenzabgaben als protektionistisch motivierte Maß-nahme bewerten, könnten sie eine Klage vor der Welthandelsorganisation WTO erheben und Vergeltungsmaßnahmen einleiten. Die Welthandelsregeln enthalten zwar Ausnahmen für Um-weltgüter, doch die endgültige WTO-Konformität lässt sich erst durch drohende Gerichtsverfah-ren endgültig klären. Gerade für exportorientierte Hersteller in Europa liegt hierin ein besonde-res Risiko, denn der Grenzausgleich würde vor allem Zuliefererländer wie Russland, die Türkei und China betreffen, die gleichzeitig wichtige Exportzielländer sind. [.] ; The European Green Deal stipulates an increase in the emissions reduction target for 2030 from 40 to 55 percent compared with the base year 1990. This also requires the ramp-up of extensive technology investments for a decarbonization pathway for industry, which tends to entail higher abatement costs. At the same time, only just under 20 percent of global emissions are subject to direct CO2 pricing (World Bank, 2020), and regional CO2 prices tend to be lower than the European certificate price. In order to ensure that the transformation of European industry con-tinues to be compatible with Europe remaining an internationally competitive production loca-tion, increasing competitive disadvantages for European manufacturers and the associated growing risk of production and emissions being shifted to non-European locations (carbon leak-age) must be contained. As part of its Green Deal, the EU Commission plans to replace the free allocation of emission rights with a border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) on emissions from imported industrial products if they originate from regions with lower CO2 price levels (EC, 2019). In this paper, we explore the potential design of a CBAM and discuss several issues regarding its implementation. Moreover, we discuss potential impacts using emissions- and trade-intensive industries like steel and cement as an example. [.]

Wenn Siemens oder SAP, IBM oder T-Systems Software in Indien entwickeln lassen, dann ist das ein Beispiel für Offshoring. Vor allem um die Folgen für die Beschäftigung in Deutschland gibt es eine lebhafte Kontroverse, die von Unternehmen und Unternehmensberatungen offensiv geführt wird. Zur Debatte stehen die Verlagerung von mehreren zehntausend hochqualifizierten IT-Arbeitsplätzen und die Zukunft des IT-Standorts Deutschland insgesamt.Diese Studie zeigt, dass Offshoring Ausdruck eines tiefer liegenden Trends ist: Ein neuer Industrialisierungs- und Internationalisierungsschub erfasst nunmehr auch komplexe Dienstleistungen im IT-Bereich. Boes und Schwemmle bieten handfestes aktuelles Material zu den Strategien der IT-Unternehmen, zum Stand der Offshoring-Entwicklung und zu den Reaktionen der Gewerkschaften. Und sie wagen eine erste, empirisch begründete Einschätzung, was von den düsteren Prognosen zu halten ist, wohin die Reise gehen könnte und worin die Herausforderungen für die Arbeitnehmer und ihre Vertretungen bestehen.Wer Offshoring als Drohgebärde zur Disziplinierung der Belegschaften nutzt und die Verlagerung von Jobs allein zur Senkung der Kosten betreibt, so ihre Botschaft, manövriert sich in eine Sackgasse. Erfolgreiche Internationalisierungsstrategien bauen auf die aktive Unterstützung der IT-Beschäftigten. Verlagerungsdrohungen sind dafür eine schlechte Basis.

We set up a two-country general equilibrium model, in which heterogeneous firms from one country (the source country) can offshore routine tasks to a low-wage host country. The most productive firms self-select into offshoring, and the impact on welfare in the source country can be positive or negative, depending on the share of firms engaged in offshoring. Each firm is run by an entrepreneur, and inequality between entrepreneurs and workers as well as intra-group inequality among entrepreneurs is higher with offshoring than in autarky. All results hold in a model extension with firm-level rent sharing, which results in aggregate unemployment. In this extended model, offshoring furthermore has non-monotonic effects on unemployment and intra-group inequality among workers. The paper also offers a calibration exercise to quantify the effects of offshoring. -- Heterogeneous Firms ; Income Inequality