This paper discusses why the United States is need of international corporate tax reform. It argues that instead of the worldwide tax system it currently uses, the United States needs to transition to a territorial tax system.

ABSTRACT This thesis analyzes the corporate income tax, more specifically related to foreign sourced income, and proposes a solution to reduce the desirability of tax inversions and restore the competitiveness of United States’ corporations. The paper introduces the topic and discusses why corporate taxation has returned to the forefront of political discussion. It then addresses early 2000s regulation passed in response to increased inversion activity of the late ‘90s and how that regulation failed to achieve its intended purpose. Then, the current laws will be introduced with a focus on corporate actions to circumvent these laws in order to reduce tax liabilities. Then, I will propose a solution that emphasizes altering the incentives of corporations as opposed to creating rules to prevent corporate actions.

Companies worldwide spend millions of dollars on sales training but often fail to address the significant effect of personal attributes of salespeople on sales performance. Grounded in Bandura's self-efficacy theory, the purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between age, tenure, general self-efficacy, and sales performance among face-to-face salespeople of technology companies worldwide. Understanding this relationship is important to sales managers for predicting sales performance to enhance sustainability. Data were collected from 103 participants between July and September 2019 via a survey link in the largest IT sales professional LinkedIn group. Multiple hierarchical linear regression analysis indicated a significant relationship, F(3,92) = 8.64, p < .001, R2 = .22, between age, length of tenure, general self-efficacy, and sales performance of salespeople. Implications for positive social change include the potential for sales managers to understand the correlates of sales performance better to contribute to the reduction of discrimination when recruiting salespeople of various ages and experience.

Ultra wide-band (UWB) technology is considered one of the very promising wireless technologies in the new millennium. This increases the demand on designing UWB antennas that meet the requirements of different UWB systems. In this dissertation, different UWB antennas are proposed such as an antenna that covers almost the entire UWB bandwidth, 3.5-11 GHz, as defined by the federal communication commission (FCC). This antenna has a size of 50×40×1.5mm3. Miniaturized worldwide UWB antennas are also introduced. Miniaturized worldwide UWB antennas that have compact sizes of (30×20×1.5) mm3, and (15×15×1.5) mm3 are also investigated. The designed worldwide UWB antennas cover the UWB spectrums defined by the electronic communication committee (ECC), 6-8.5 GHz, and the common worldwide UWB spectrum, 7.4-9 GHz. A system consisting of two identical antennas (transmitter and receiver) is built in the Antennas and Propagation Lab at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC) to test the coupling properties between every two identical antennas. The performance of that system is analyzed under different ii conditions to guarantee that the transmitted signal will be correctly recovered at the receiver end. The designed UWB antennas can be used in many short range applications such as wireless USB. Wireless USB is used in PCs, printers, scanners, laptops, MP3 players, hard disks and flash drives. A new technique is introduced to widen the impedance bandwidth of dielectric resonator antennas (DRAs). DRA features compactness, low losses, and wideband antennas. Different compact UWB DRAs are investigated in this dissertation. The designed DRAs cover a wide range of frequency bands such as, 6.17-24GHz, 4.23-13.51GHz, and 4.5-13.6GHz. The designed DRAs have compact sizes of 1×1×1.5cm3, 0.9×0.9×1.32cm3, 0.6×0.6×1cm3, and 0.6×0.6×0.9cm3; and cover the following frequency bands 4.22-13.51GHz, 4.5-13.6GHz, 6.1-23.75GHz, and 6.68-26.7GHz; respectively. The proposed DRAs may be used for applications in the X, Ku and K bands such as military radars and unmanned airborne vehicles (UAV).

A competição no mercado internacional com os produtores mundiais, pode ser uma fonte de excelentes oportunidades ou de perigosas armadilhas, como o desafio de difícil solução, representado pelos produtores mundiais de calçados com baixos custos de mão-de-obra, por exemplo, os chineses. A grande maioria dos produtores brasileiros de calçados está estabelecida em clusters, como na Europa os produtores italianos de calçados estão estabelecidos nos \"distretti\". Essas concentrações geográficas de fabricantes são normalmente formadas por empresas de pequeno e médio porte, todas enfrentando o mesmo problema, pois o custo da mão-de-obra é um dos principais custos relativos às atividades das empresas em geral, e principalmente das que operam com a produção baseada na utilização intensiva de mão-de-obra. E mesmo possuindo bom nível de qualidade em seus produtos, estão enfrentando sérias dificuldades financeiras e operacionais, e assim podem permanecer até o encerramento de suas atividades; como tem acontecido, a menos que possam encontrar uma solução organizacional; uma estratégia competitiva que permita concorrerem nas oportunidades dos mercados mundiais sem sofrer as constantes derrotas comerciais impostas pelos produtores chineses. O principal objetivo do presente trabalho, foi propor estratégia competitiva para a indústria calçadista brasileira, por meio da investigação dos principais fatores que estão influenciando a competitividade dos produtores brasileiros no mercado internacional de calçados, principalmente as estratégias adotadas no cluster de Franca. A pesquisa foi realizada em uma indústria de mão-de-obra intensiva, no cluster produtivo de calçados de Franca - SP, completada com informações de pesquisa realizada em tipo de cluster similar na Itália, o cluster calçadista de Verona. (Distretto Calzaturiero di Verona). A proposta final sugere as ações gerenciais e ferramentas para os melhoramentos estratégicos mais adequadas para possibilitar às empresas e outros participantes do cluster, aperfeiçoarem seu preparo para participar da competição de âmbito mundial com maiores chances de sucesso. Estas ações e ferramentas são a base para a proposta de estratégia competitiva, um assunto original na forma como é abordada, pois na literatura especializada não foi encontrado nenhuma tese específica sobre o assunto. / The international market footwear competition against worldwide producers can be for instance, a source of good opportunities as well as a source of threats like the very hard challenge to solve, represented by the low labor costs producers, like the Chinese footwear producers. Almost all footwear Brazilian producers are established in clusters like in Europe, the Italian footwear producers are established in the \"distretti\". These geographic footwear producers concentrations\' are normally composed by small and medium firms, all facing the same problem, as a labor cost is one of the main costs regarding all enterprises activities and mainly in those productive processes based on intensive use of labor. And these firms, despite of produce excellent quality level products, are in serious financial and operational difficulties, and in this situation they could remain up to the end of their operations, fact occurring too much times, unless can be found an organizational solution, one corporative, and business strategy allowing them to compete in all the world business market opportunities without suffer from being continuously overcame by the Chinese producers. The main purpose of this thesis, was to prepare a competitive strategic proposal for Brazilian footwear Industry, by means investigation of the main factors influencing the Brazilian producers\' competitiveness in the international footwear market, mainly the strategies adopted in the cluster of Franca. The research was performed in the intensive labor industry, the footwear industry, in the productive footwear cluster of Franca, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, completed with information from research in similar cluster\'s type in Italy, the footwear cluster of Verona (Distretto Calzaturiero di Verona). The final proposal, suggests the most suited managerial actions and tools, to strategic improvements, in order to make the firms and others actors in the clusters improve their skills to better play the game, and have much more chances to win. These actions and tools are the base for a strategic proposal , an original issue, since in the literature was not found any thesis specific about the subject.

<p>This paper examines how debt cancellation, given under the HIPC-initiative, has affected corruption over the period 2000-2006. The examination is foremost interesting due to earlier research showing that high corruption leads to unequal distribution of economic resources. This, combined with the objective of the HIPC initiative to reduce poverty, indicates that combating corruption must be successful in order to fulfill the goals of the initiative. A linear regression shows that countries that have benefited from the HIPC-initiative indeed have a lower corruption than other countries. A panel-data analysis shows on the other hand that no effect on corruption due to debt cancellation or reforms undertaken in the program can be confirmed.</p>

This paper examines the effect of governance on inequality, specifically if improvements in the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators affect inequality as measured by two Gini coefficients: Market Gini, before taxes and redistribution, and Net Gini, after taxes and redistribution. The data for the Gini measurements was taken from the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIID) and the data for the Worldwide Governance Indicators was taken from the World Bank. Data for fifteen (15) years, from the start of the Worldwide Governance Indicators until 2013, was combined with data from SWIID for the same years. In all, data from one hundred fifty-six (156) countries with a full set of six (6) indicators for the years that had at least one corresponding Gini measurements were used in this study: in total one thousand seven hundred and forty-seven (1747) observations. In a pooled OLS regression, controlling for growth with the variable GDP per Capita expressed as a per cent (%) change on an annual basis, the individual indicators gave the following results, where a positive sign indicates increased inequality and vice versa: Control of Corruption and Regulatory Quality showed a positive sign for both Gini measurements. Rule of Law, Government Effectiveness, Political Stability and the Absence of Violence/Terrorism, gave a negative sign for both Gini measurements. Voice and Accountability showed a positive sign for Market Gini and a negative sign for Net Gini. The fact that an improvement in Control of Corruption increased inequality both before and after taxes and redistribution was unexpected and should be further researched.

This paper examines how debt cancellation, given under the HIPC-initiative, has affected corruption over the period 2000-2006. The examination is foremost interesting due to earlier research showing that high corruption leads to unequal distribution of economic resources. This, combined with the objective of the HIPC initiative to reduce poverty, indicates that combating corruption must be successful in order to fulfill the goals of the initiative. A linear regression shows that countries that have benefited from the HIPC-initiative indeed have a lower corruption than other countries. A panel-data analysis shows on the other hand that no effect on corruption due to debt cancellation or reforms undertaken in the program can be confirmed.

La présente recherche porte sur Healing Our Spirit Worldwide (HOSW), un mouvement autochtone de guérison international. Les rassemblements HOSW, qui se déroulent à un intervalle variable dans différents pays, sont des lieux de célébration de la résilience des peuples autochtones et contribuent à l’émergence d’un sentiment de communauté et de solidarité entre les participants. Une description brève du mouvement, notamment vis-à-vis de son historique, son mandat et sa structure, est complétée par l’exemple du sixième rassemblement qui s’est déroulé à Honolulu, Hawai’i en septembre 2010. Celui-ci est mis à profit pour illustrer plus clairement la nature du mouvement et mettre en relief les discours des conférenciers lors de cet événement sur les thèmes de la guérison et de l’autochtonéité qui sont au cœur des intentions de recherche. La recherche met en lumière la dimension relationnelle de la guérison et de l’autochtonéité telles qu’elles sont décrites au sein du mouvement HOSW. / This research examines Healing Our Spirit Worldwide (HOSW), an international indigenous healing movement. HOSW gatherings, which take place every few years, each time in a different country, are spaces in which the resilience of indigenous peoples is celebrated; these events contribute to the emergence of a feeling of community and solidarity between the participants. A brief description of the movement, relating to its history, mandate and structure, is completed by the example of the sixth gathering which took place in September 2010 in Honolulu, Hawai’i. This event illustrates more clearly the nature of the movement and provides relevant context to the analysis of the discourses of speakers of this gathering on the themes of healing and indigeneity which are at the heart of this research. This research highlights the relational dimension of healing and indigeneity as they are described within the HOSW movement.

The Portfolio Analysis Management Office (PAMO) for the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) at NASA Headquarters tasked the Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate at NASA Langley to combine efforts with Virginia Tech to develop a global demand model with the capability to predict future demand in the air transportation field. A previous study (Alsalous, 2015) started the development of the Global Demand Mode (GDM) to predict air travel demand based on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and population trends for 3,974 airports worldwide. The study was done from year 2016 to year 2040. This research project intends to enhance the GDM capabilities. A Fratar model is implemented for the distribution of the forecast demand during each year. The Fratar model uses a 3,974 by 3,974 origin-destination matrix to distribute the demand among 55,612 unique routes in the network. Moreover, the GDM is capable to estimate the aircraft fleet mix per route and the number of flights per aircraft that are needed to satisfy the forecast demand. The model adopts the aircraft fleet mix from the Official Airline Guide data for the year 2015. Once the aircraft types are distributed and flights are assigned, the GDM runs an aircraft retirement and replacement analysis to remove older generation aircraft from the network and replace them with existing or newer aircraft. The GDM continues to evolve worldwide aircraft fleet by introducing 14 new generation aircraft from Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, and Embraer and 5 Advanced Technology Aircraft from NASA. / Master of Science / The Portfolio Analysis Management Office (PAMO) for the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) at NASA Headquarters tasked the Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate at NASA Langley to combine efforts with Virginia Tech to develop a global demand model with the capability to predict future demand in the air transportation field. A previous study (Alsalous, 2015) started the development of the Global Demand Mode (GDM) to predict air travel demand based on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and population trends for 3,974 airports worldwide. The study was done from year 2016 to year 2040. The previous study done by Alsaous, predicts how many seats will be departing out of the 3,974 airports worldwide. This project intends to use the outputs of the GDM and distribute the seats predicted among the airports. The objective is to predict how many seats will be offered that will be departing from airport “A” and arriving at airport “B”. For this, a Fratar model was implemented. The second objective of this project is to estimate what will the aircraft fleet be in the future and how many flights will be needed to satisfy the predicted air travel demand. If the number of seats going from airport A to airport B is known, then, by analyzing real data it can be estimated what type of aircraft will be flying from airport “A” to airport “B” and how many flights each aircraft will have to perform in order to satisfy the forecasted demand. Besides of estimating the type of aircraft that will be used in the future, the modeled created is capable of introducing new aircraft that are not part of the network yet. Fourteen new generation aircraft from Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, and Embraer and 5 Advanced Technology Aircraft from NASA.