Audit probability versus effectiveness: The Beckerian approach revisited

The Beckerian approach to tax compliance examines how a tax authority can maximize social welfare by trading-off audit probability against the fine rate on undeclared tax. This paper offers an alternative examination of the privately optimal behavior of a tax authority tasked by government to maximize expected revenue. The tax authority is able to trade-off audit probability against audit effectiveness, but takes the fine rate as fixed in the short run. I find that the tax authority's privately optimal audit strategy does not maximize vol- untary compliance, and that voluntary compliance is non-monotonic as a function of the tax authority's budget. Last, the tax authority's privately optimal effective fine rate on undeclared tax does not exceed two at interior optima

THE CAUSES OF FINANCIAL DISTRESS IN LOCAL BANKS IN AFRICA AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRUDENTIAL POLICY

This paper offers a critical survey of a strong globalization thesis that predicts a direct link from more open trade and investment regimes to faster economic growth in developing countries and income convergence across the global economy. Its examination of recent experience suggests that while in a more open and integrated world economy both the quantity and the quality of investment are influenced by external factors the forces driving capital accumulation retain strong domestic roots and remain open to the influence of various types of policy initiative.

An analysis of spending behaviour under liquidity constraints with an application to financial hedging

Imperial Users onl

Circumstantial risk : impact of future tax evasion and labor supply opportunities on risk exposure

This paper examines whether risk-taking in a lottery depends on the opportunity to respond to the lottery outcome through additional labor effort and/or tax evasion. Previous empirical attempts to answer this question face identification issues due to self selection into jobs that facilitate tax evasion and labor effort exibility. We address these identification issues using a laboratory experiment (N = 180). Subjects have the opportunity to invest earned income in a lottery and, depending on randomly assigned treatment states, have the opportunity to respond to the lottery outcome through evasion and/or extra labor effort. We find strong evidence that ex-post access to labor opportunities reduces ex-ante risk willingness while access to tax evasion has no effect on risk behavior. We discuss possible explanations for this result based on the existing literature