Moonlighting Production, Tax Rates and Capital Subsidies

Informal firms play a crucial role in both developing and developed countries, and there is evidence of a larger presence of moonlighting firms over ghost firms. The former are firms that operate simultaneously in the official and unofficial sectors, whereas the ghost firms undertake their production only underground. In order to deal with this evidence, through an ad-hoc assumption we represent a specific technological advantage of moonlighting firms over ghost firms, modelled through an aggregate-capital externality. In this setting we examine the steady state effect of fiscal policies aimed to support firms, in particular investment subsidies and tax allowances, on firm size and underground production. Among the main results, a tax cut (rise), induces the moonlighting firm to engage in more (less) official production. Contrary to the presumption that subsidies may also be useful for pushing firms to operate over ground, in the presence of moonlighting technology, the incentives to improve capital stock turn out to be counterproductive in that they increase the unofficial economy overall.formal and informal sectors, capital investment, tax exemptions

Consumption and Income Smoothing

This paper presents a two sector dynamic general equilibrium model in which income smoothing takes place within the households (intra-temporally), and consumption smoothing takes place among the households (inter-temporally). Idiosyncratic risk sharing within the family is based on an income smoothing contract. There are two sectors in the model, the regular sector and the underground sector, and the smoothing comes from the underground sector, which is countercyclical with respect aggregate GDP. The paper shows that the simulated disaggregated consumption and income series (that are the regular and underground consumption flows) are more sensitive to exogenous changes in sector-specific productivity and tax rates than regular and underground income flows, and that this picture is reversed when the aggregate series are considered.-

Capital Subsidies and Underground Production

In this paper we investigate the effects of different fiscal policies on the firm choice to produce underground. We consider a tax evading firm operating simultaneously both in the regular and in the underground economy. We suggest that such a kind of firm, referred to as moonlighting firm, is able to offset the specific costs usually stressed by literature on underground production, such as those suggested by Loayza (1994) and Anderberg et alii (2003). Investigating the effects of different fiscal policy interventions, we find that taxation is a critical parameter to define the size of capital allocation in the underground production. In fact, a strong and inverse relationship is found, and tax reduction is the best policy to reduce the convenience to produce underground. We also confirm the depressing effect on investment of taxation (see, for instance, Summers, 1981), so that tax reduction has no cost in terms of investment. By contrast, the model states that while enforcement is an effective tool to reduce capital allocation in the underground production, it also reduce the total capital stock. Moreover, we also suggest that the allowance of incentives to capital accumulation may generate, in this specific typology of firm, some unexpected effects, causing, together with a positive investment process, also an increase in the share of irregularity. This finding could explain, in a microeconomic framework, the evidence of Italian southern regions, where high incentives are combined with high irregularity ratios.tax evasion, moonlighting, capital subsidies, underground production

Firm-oriented policies, tax cheating and perverse outcomes

This paper examines the implications of firm-oriented fiscal policies, namely investment subsidies and tax allowances, in an economy where producers may potentially avoid taxes. Among our results we stress the following. First, although investment subsidies induce increased capital accumulation (a level effect), they promote tax evasion; these subsidies induce firms to increase actual capital accumulation (a level effect), but also produce a reduction in the share of aggregate capital stock deployed in taxed, "official" production (a composition effect). Second, parameters characterizing the tax enforcement system play a major role in explaining tax evasion and firm size. Third, the technology structure matters for determining how to allocate resources between official and unofficial production.State aid, tax exemptions, investment subsidies, tax evasion, unofficial underground production, investment

State Aid Policies and Underground Activities

The main goal of this paper is to examine the implications of firm-oriented fiscal policies, such as capital subsidies and tax allowances, in an economy with an underground sector. In addition, we investigate whether the technology structure of “hidden” production may facilitate or counteract the effects of fiscal policies on firm behavior. Among our results we stress the following: first, capital subsidies promote tax evasion; these subsidies induce firms to increase actual capital accumulation (a level effect), but also produce a reduction in the regular share of aggregate capital stock (a composition effect). Second, tax relief reduces underground activities and fosters capital accumulation, as well as aggregate production. Third, the technology structure matters for determining how to allocate resources between formal and informal production, hence the amount of reported revenues.State aid, tax exemptions, capital subsidies, tax evasion, underground production, physical capital accumulation.

the first record of the marbled crayfish adds further threats to fresh waters in italy

* Corresponding author Received 9 February 2009; accepted in revised form 30 March 2009; published online 24 April 2009 Abstract The red swamp crayfish, Procambarus clarkii, is the most abundant invasive crustacean decapod in Italy. Evidence is however emerging for the presence of other Cambaridae that are erroneously assigned to the P. clarkii taxon. The marbled crayfish, belonging to a still uncertain species of the genus Procambarus, has been found for the first time in Italy in the Canale Maestro della Chiana (Tuscany, Central Italy), where it lives in sympatry with a large P. clarkii population. Although a single specimen was found, this record is particularly relevant due to the parthenogenetic reproductive habit of the marbled crayfish. However, molecular analyses based on COI barcoding did not reveal any differentiation within the P. clarkii population and excluded any form of hybridization between the two species. We will shortly discuss new pathways of invasive species and the threats posed by parthenogenetic species, even though they seem to be still sporadic

Therapeutic potential of the phosphino Cu(I) complex (HydroCuP) in the treatment of solid tumors

[Cu(thp)4][PF6] (HydroCuP) is a phosphino copper(I) complex highly soluble and stable in physiological media that has been developed as a possible viable alternative to platinum-based drugs for anticancer therapy. HydroCuP potently inhibited the growth of human cancer cells derived from solid tumors by inducing endoplasmatic reticulum (ER) stress thus leading to cell death through paraptosis with a preferential efficacy against cancer rather than non-cancer cells. Aim of the present study was to assess the therapeutic potential of HydroCuP in vivo, in syngenic and xenograft murine models of solid tumors by triggering the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR) pathway. With respect to platinum drugs, HydroCuP induced a markedly higher reduction of tumor growth associated with minimal animal toxicity. In human colorectal cancer xenografts, chemotherapy with HydroCuP was extremely effective in both oxaliplatin-sensitive and resistant models. The favorable in vivo tolerability of HydroCuP was also correlated to an encouraging biodistribution profile. Additionally, no signs of drug-related neurotoxicity and nephrotoxicity were observed. Altogether, these results demonstrate that HydroCuP appears worth of further investigation to evaluate its therapeutic activity towards a broad spectrum of solid malignancies

In vitro antitumor activity of water-soluble copper(I) complexes with diimine and monodentate phosphine ligands

Copper(I) complexes including diimine ligands of the bicinchoninic acid (BCA) and bathocuproinedisulfonic acid (BCS) families and water-soluble phosphines have been synthetized, characterized and investigated for their in vitro anticancer potential against human tumor cell lines representing examples of lung, breast, pancreatic and colon cancers and melanoma. All copper complexes exhibited moderate to high cytotoxic activity and the ability to overcome cisplatin resistance. Remarkably, growth-inhibitory effects evaluated in human non-transformed cells revealed a preferential cytotoxicity versus neoplastic cells. The remarkable cytotoxic effect towards BxPC3 pancreatic cancer cells, notoriously poor sensitive to cisplatin, was not related to a DNA or proteasome damage. Keywords: Copper(I) complexes, Antitumor activity, Diimine ligands, Phosphine ligands, Water solubl

Indicators of biodiversity in an intensively cultivated and heavily human modified landscape

Abstract Nowadays, the loss of biodiversity in agroecosystems due to the intensification of farming practices is happening very fast, and therefore, stopping or slowing it down should be a priority for conservation. To detect changes in these environmental contexts, one approach contemplates focusing on a limited set of indicator species that can alert us to ongoing changes in progress. In this research, we aimed to measure the biodiversity of vertebrates using a multi-taxa approach in an intensively cultivated and highly inhabited area located in northern Italy. We investigated the relationships between biodiversity and environmental characteristics and we identified the taxonomic groups that can be used as indicators of biodiversity. Data collection was carried out in 2016 with different methods depending on the taxonomic group, in 131 sampling units chosen using a Tessellation Stratified Sampling. Then we calculated for each sampling unit a standardized Biodiversity Index, which was related to environmental variables concerning the land use and the landscape configuration using Multiple Linear Regression Analysis and Information-Theoretic approach. We used correlation analyses and the Indicator Species Analysis (IndVal) to identify the taxonomic groups and species that can be used as indicators of biodiversity. Biodiversity was positively related to the number of patches of natural vegetation, whereas it was negatively affected by the number of patches of artificial surfaces and by habitat diversity. Our findings agree with those obtained by many other researchers, which pointed out that agroecosystems provide adequate shelters, suitable foraging habitats and nesting sites. The negative effect of habitat diversity was explained by the area-heterogeneity trade-off. Therefore, sites with high heterogeneity will not contain enough cover of residual natural vegetation, essential to maintain high biodiversity, because increasing compositional heterogeneity within a fixed area simultaneously reduces the surface of each cover type. The analyses showed that birds and reptiles might be used as biodiversity indicators of vertebrates. Eurasian Magpie and Green Whip Snake, both generalist species, were associated with sites of low biodiversity, whereas seven birds, both generalists and farmland specialists, were associated with sites of medium biodiversity. In high biodiversity sites there were not indicator species. To conclude, in less natural environments, such as urban and agricultural landscapes, a combination of specialist and generalist indicator species seems adequate to monitor biodiversity changes. Our findings increase the knowledge of these very dynamic ecosystems, being important both to plan strategies for biodiversity conservation and to guarantee ecosystems services useful for humans

A fuzzy method for RNA-Seq differential expression analysis in presence of multireads

Background: When the reads obtained from high-throughput RNA sequencing are mapped against a reference database, a significant proportion of them - known as multireads - can map to more than one reference sequence. These multireads originate from gene duplications, repetitive regions or overlapping genes. Removing the multireads from the mapping results, in RNA-Seq analyses, causes an underestimation of the read counts, while estimating the real read count can lead to false positives during the detection of differentially expressed sequences. Results: We present an innovative approach to deal with multireads and evaluate differential expression events, entirely based on fuzzy set theory. Since multireads cause uncertainty in the estimation of read counts during gene expression computation, they can also influence the reliability of differential expression analysis results, by producing false positives. Our method manages the uncertainty in gene expression estimation by defining the fuzzy read counts and evaluates the possibility of a gene to be differentially expressed with three fuzzy concepts: over-expression, same-expression and under-expression. The output of the method is a list of differentially expressed genes enriched with information about the uncertainty of the results due to the multiread presence. We have tested the method on RNA-Seq data designed for case-control studies and we have compared the obtained results with other existing tools for read count estimation and differential expression analysis. Conclusions: The management of multireads with the use of fuzzy sets allows to obtain a list of differential expression events which takes in account the uncertainty in the results caused by the presence of multireads. Such additional information can be used by the biologists when they have to select the most relevant differential expression events to validate with laboratory assays. Our method can be used to compute reliable differential expression events and to highlight possible false positives in the lists of differentially expressed genes computed with other tools