A note on the neutrality of profit taxes and tax compliance with imperfect detection

In a tax-evasion model with profit tax, we reexamine and clarify the issues of neutrality and separability with imperfect detection of tax fraud. With this more realistic setting, we show that the profit tax is not necessarily neutral and the separability conclusion may not hold. Furthermore, the property of non-neutrality may coexist with that of separability or inseparability. However, in contrast to the traditional conclusion, raising the audit probability may reduce the tax compliance when the property of inseparability is present.

Pricing and Searching in the Retail Gasoline Market

The paper studies consumers' search behavior and firm's pricing strategies in an economy with differential location among retail gasoline stations. The main findings are: (1) The consumer group in self-service gasoline markets searches more than that in full-service gasoline markets. (2) The consumer group in the regular gasoline market searches most among all gasoline markets. (3) A rapid price change raised the degree of consumers' search in most of the six gasoline markets, however the increase in the consumers' search index was more significant in full-service markets than that in self-service gasoline markets. (4) The average interval of credible pricing for each gasoline market that we studied is about two months. (5) A search index can be used to compare the intensity of consumers' search between different quality of gasoline markets. The successful application of this index suggests its usefulness in studying other monopolistic competitive markets

Incomplete Search, Price Dispersion and Multiple Production Technologies

This paper shows that the incomplete consumer search will allow multiple production technologies to coexist in the same market, with different equilibrium prices for homogeneous products across firms. This study extends the work of Sadanand and Wilde in two directions: (1) firms are allowed to produce one homogeneous good with different production technologies and (2) consumers' shopping behavior allows non-random sampling strategies. This paper also shows that consumers' search for lower prices will enhance social welfare

慈善公司實物損贈之生產效率

[[abstract]]　　There is a fundamental tention between a philanthropic corporation’s economic goal and social mission. Although there is a general belief that philanthropic corporations benefit the society, the reality is that these corporation’s good deeds may distort their production thus causing inefficiencies for the society. There is little literature on how the firm’s in-kind donation impact its production efficiency, so we setup a model to study how these philanthropic behaviors affect the corporations’ profit and production. In the model, we found the philanthropist’s in-kind donations are more likely to distort the firm’s production planning, causing the firm to produce more than the profit-maximizing quantity, and in turn prevents the firm from the economic goal. Furthermore, even when a firm engages in in-kind donation to strategically reduce production cost, the philanthropist’s preference on donations is also likely to distort the production decisions. However, there will be no production distortion if the donation is made in cash as a percentage of the firm’s profit. In this case, the philanthropic corporation can achieve both economic and social goals. 　　慈善公司的獲利經濟目標與其社會使命之間可能產生衝突。一般普遍認為慈善公司對社會是有利的。然而，在某些情況下慈善公司的社會使命可能導致其生產無效率。然而很少文獻探討有關實物損贈對公司生產效率的影響。本文基於以慈善為一種商業策略，建立了一個模型來探討公司的慈善行為是如何影響公司的利潤與生產。我們並檢驗慈善行為是否扭曲公司的生產，本模型中顯示當公司以實物損贈作為慈善策略時，其慈善偏好與損贈數額將扭曲公司的生產決策而無法利潤最大化，然當以一定比例的利潤做為現金損贈時將不會有生產決策扭曲情況，因此慈善公司可同時達成獲利經濟目標與社會使命

Expression-Based Cell Lineage Analysis in Drosophila Through a Course-Based Research Experience for Early Undergraduates.

A variety of genetic techniques have been devised to determine cell lineage relationships during tissue development. Some of these systems monitor cell lineages spatially and/or temporally without regard to gene expression by the cells, whereas others correlate gene expression with the lineage under study. The GAL4 Technique for Real-time and Clonal Expression (G-TRACE) system allows for rapid, fluorescent protein-based visualization of both current and past GAL4 expression patterns and is therefore amenable to genome-wide expression-based lineage screens. Here we describe the results from such a screen, performed by undergraduate students of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Undergraduate Research Consortium for Functional Genomics (URCFG) and high school summer scholars as part of a discovery-based education program. The results of the screen, which reveal novel expression-based lineage patterns within the brain, the imaginal disc epithelia, and the hematopoietic lymph gland, have been compiled into the G-TRACE Expression Database (GED), an online resource for use by the Drosophila research community. The impact of this discovery-based research experience on student learning gains was assessed independently and shown to be greater than that of similar programs conducted elsewhere. Furthermore, students participating in the URCFG showed considerably higher STEM retention rates than UCLA STEM students that did not participate in the URCFG, as well as STEM students nationwide