Local autonomy, tax morale, and the shadow economy

Policymakers often propose strict enforcement strategies to fight the shadow economy and to increase tax morale. However, there is an alternative bottom-up approach that decentralises political power to those who are close to the problems. This paper analyses the relationship with local autonomy. We use data on tax morale at the individual level and macro data on the size of the shadow economy to analyse the relevance of local autonomy and compliance in Switzerland. The findings suggest that there is a positive (negative) relationship between local autonomy and tax morale (size of the shadow economy).

Serious tax non compliance : motivation and guardianship

This article reviews what international evidence exists on the impact of civil and criminal sanctions upon serious tax noncompliance by individuals. This construct lacks sharp definitional boundaries but includes large tax fraud and large-scale evasion that are not dealt with as fraud. Although substantial research and theory have been developed on general tax evasion and compliance, their conclusions might not apply to large-scale intentional fraudsters. No scientifically defensible studies directly compared civil and criminal sanctions for tax fraud, although one U.S. study reported that significantly enhanced criminal sanctions have more effects than enhanced audit levels. Prosecution is public, whereas administrative penalties are confidential, and this fact encourages those caught to pay heavy penalties to avoid publicity, a criminal record, and imprisonment.

On the endogeneity of the pay-performance relationship in professional soccer

In this reply we show that the Nüesch (2009) comment paper to our initial contribution (Torgler and Schmidt 2007) has several shortcomings. He suggests that professional soccer wages seem to buy talent rather than motivation. We therefore provide a larger set of talent proxies and estimations to check whether this assertion is correct. Our results indicate that his conclusion is problematic. We still observe a strong motivational effect, and in some cases the effect is even larger than the talent effect. A further key problem in Nüesch’s contribution is the fact that he neglects to consider the relevance of the relative salary situation.

Comment on “The spreading of disorder”

Keizer, Lindenberg and Steg (2008) conduct six interesting field experiments and report that their results provide evidence of the broken windows theory. Such an analysis is highly relevant as the (broken windows) theory is both controversial and lacking empirical support. Keizer et al.’s key aim was to conceptualize a disorderly setting in such a way that it is linked to a process of spreading norm violation. The strength of the study is the exploration of cross-norm inhibition effects in a controlled field experimental environment. Their results show that if norm violating behavior becomes more common, it negatively affects compliance in other areas. Nevertheless, this comment paper discusses several shortcomings or limitations and provides new empirical evidence that deals with these problems.

The moral economy of social media

In this chapter we take a high-level view of social media, focusing not on specific applications, domains, websites, or technologies, but instead our interest is in the forms of engagement that social media engender. This is not to suggest that all social media are the same, or even that everyone’s experience with any particular medium or technology is the same. However, we argue common issues arise that characterize social media in a broad sense, and provide a different analytic perspective than we would gain from looking at particular systems or applications. We do not take the perspective that social life merely happens “within” such systems, nor that social life “shapes” such systems, but rather these systems provide a site for the production of social and cultural reality – that media are always already social and the engagement with, in, and through media of all sorts is a thoroughly social phenomenon. Accordingly, in this chapter, we examine two phenomena concurrently: social life seen through the lens of social media, and social media seen through the lens of social life. In particular, we want to understand the ways that a set of broad phenomena concerning forms of participation in social life is articulated in the domain of social media. As a conceptual entry-point, we use the notion of the “moral economy” as a means to open up the domain of inquiry. We first discuss the notion of the “moral economy” as it has been used by a number of social theorists, and then identify a particular set of conceptual concerns that we suggest link it to the phenomena of social networking in general. We then discuss a series of examples drawn from a range of studies to elaborate and ground this conceptual framework in empirical data. This leads us to a broader consideration of audiences and publics in social media that, we suggest, holds important lessons for how we treat social media analytically.

Productivity, technical and efficiency change in Singapore’s services sector, 2005 to 2008

The current study was motivated by statements made by the Economic Strategies Committee that Singapore’s recent productivity levels in services were well below countries such as the US, Japan and Hong Kong. Massive employment of foreign workers was cited as the reason for poor productivity levels. To shed more light on Singapore’s falling productivity, a nonparametric Malmquist productivity index was employed which provides measures of productivity change, technical change and efficiency change. The findings reveal that growth in Total Factor Productivity (TFP) was attributed to technical change with no improvement in efficiency change. Such results suggest that gains from TFP were input-driven rather than from a ‘best-practice’ approach such as improvements in operations or better resource allocation.

A note on the ‘Linsanity’ of measuring the relative efficiency of National Basketball Association (NBA) guards

This note examines the productive efficiency of 62 starting guards during the 2011/12 National Basketball Association (NBA) season. This period coincides with the phenomenal and largely unanticipated performance of New York Knicks’ starting point guard Jeremy Lin and the attendant public and media hype known as Linsanity. We employ a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach that includes allowance for an undesirable output, here turnovers per game, with the desirable outputs of points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks per game and an input of minutes per game. The results indicate that depending upon the specification, between 29 and 42 percent of NBA guards are fully efficient, including Jeremy Lin, with a mean inefficiency of 3.7 and 19.2 percent. However, while Jeremy Lin is technically efficient, he seldom serves as a benchmark for inefficient players, at least when compared with established players such as Chris Paul and Dwayne Wade. This suggests the uniqueness of Jeremy Lin’s productive solution and may explain why his unique style of play, encompassing individual brilliance, unselfish play, and team leadership, is of such broad public appeal.

Efficiency and productivity of Singapore’s manufacturing sector 2001-2010: An analysis using Simar and Wilson’s (2007) bootstrapped truncated approach

This paper seeks to explain the lagging productivity in Singapore’s manufacturing noted in the statements of the Economic Strategies Committee Report 2010. Two methods are employed: the Malmquist productivity to measure total factor productivity change and Simar and Wilson’s (J Econ, 136:31–64, 2007) bootstrapped truncated regression approach. In the first stage, the nonparametric data envelopment analysis is used to measure technical efficiency. To quantify the economic drivers underlying inefficiencies, the second stage employs a bootstrapped truncated regression whereby bias-corrected efficiency estimates are regressed against explanatory variables. The findings reveal that growth in total factor productivity was attributed to efficiency change with no technical progress. Most industries were technically inefficient throughout the period except for ‘Pharmaceutical Products’. Sources of efficiency were attributed to quality of worker and flexible work arrangements while incessant use of foreign workers lowered efficiency.