Evaluating the individual- and country-level variations in tax morale: Evidence from 35 Eurasian countries

Recently, a small but burgeoning literature has argued that tax non-compliance cannot be fully explained using the conventional rational economic actor approach which views non-compliance as occurring when the pay-off is greater than the expected cost of being caught and punished. Instead, a social actor approach has emerged which views tax non-compliance as higher when ‘tax morale’, defined as the intrinsic motivation to pay taxes, is low. To advance this social actor model, the aim of this paper is to evaluate the individual and national heterogeneity in tax morale, which is crucial if tax compliance is to be improved

Cross-national Deployment of "Graduate Jobs": Analysis Using a New Indicator Based on High Skills Use

Utilising work task data drawn from the OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills of 2011/2012 and 2014/2015, we derive a new skills-based indicator of graduate jobs, termed ISCO(HE)2008, for thirty-one countries. The indicator generates a plausible distribution of graduate occupations and explains graduates' wages and job satisfaction better than hitherto existing indicators. Unlike with the traditional classifier, several jobs in major group 3 “Technicians and Associate Professionals" require higher education in many countries. Altogether, almost a third of labour is deployed in graduate jobs in the 31 countries, but with large cross-national differences. Industry and establishment-size composition can account for some of the variation. In addition, two indicators of the relative quality of the higher education system also contribute to the variation in the prevalence of graduate jobs across countries

Why is informal employment more common in some countries? an exploratory analysis of 112 countries

Purpose: This paper evaluates competing explanations for the greater prevalence of informal employment in some countries rather than others. These variously explain informal employment to be a result of either economic under-development and the lack of modernisation of governance (‘modernisation’ theory), higher taxes and too much state intervention (‘neo-liberal’ theory) or inadequate government intervention to protect workers from poverty (‘political economy’ theory). Methodology: To do this, an International Labour Organisation data base produced in 2018 on the prevalence of informal employment in 112 countries (comprising 90 per cent of the global workforce) is analysed, and macro-level economic and social conditions reflecting each of these theories tested using bivariate regressions. Findings: The prevalence of informal employment ranges from 94.6% of total employment in Burkina Faso to 1.2% in Luxembourg. Evaluating the validity of the competing theories, neo-liberal theory is refuted, and a call made to synthesise the modernisation and political economy perspectives in a new ‘neo-modernisation’ theory that tentatively associates the greater prevalence of informal employment with lower economic under-development, greater levels of public sector corruption, smaller government and lower levels of state intervention to protect workers from poverty. Practical implications: This paper tentatively reveals the structural economic and social conditions that need to be addressed globally to reduce informal employment. Originality/value: This is the first paper to report the results of a harmonised dataset based on common criteria to measure the varying prevalence of informal employment globally (across 112 countries representing 90 per cent of global employment) in order to determine the structural economic and social conditions associated with higher levels of informal employment

Evaluating the internal dualism of the informal sector: evidence from the European Union

Purpose To transcend the current debates about whether participation in the informal sector is a result of informal workers “exclusion” or their voluntary “exit” from the formal sector, the aim of this paper is to propose and evaluate the existence of a dual informal labour market composed of an exit-driven “upper tier” and exclusion-driven “lower-tier” of informal workers. Methodology To do this, data from a 2013 Eurobarometer survey involving 27,563 face-to-face interviews across the European Union is reported. Findings The finding is that in the European Union, there is a dual informal labour market with those participating in the informal sector due to their exclusion from the formal sector being half the number of those doing so to voluntarily exit the formal sector. Using a logistic regression analysis, the exclusion-driven “lower tier” is identified as significantly more likely to be populated by the unemployed and those living in East-Central Europe and the exit-driven “upper tier” by those with few financial difficulties and living in Nordic nations. Research implications The results reveal the need not only to transcend either/or debates about whether participants in the informal sector are universally exclusion- or exit-driven, and to adopt a both/and approach that recognises a dual informal labour market composed of an exit-driven upper tier and exclusion-driven lower tier, but also for wider research on the relative sizes of these two tiers in individual countries and other global regions, along with which groups populate these tiers. Originality/value This is the first evaluation of the internal dualism of the informal sector in the European Union

The role of national intellectual capital in the digital transformation of EU countries. Another digital divide?

Purpose: This study, an exploratory one, aims to empirically investigate the association of national intellectual capital (NIC) with the national digital transformation readiness of the European Union's (EU’s) member states. Apart from building the conceptual model of NIC, this study explores the role of NIC dimensions in the digital divide between European countries. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the literature review and the available EU statistical data and indexes, the theoretical framework and conceptual model for NIC were developed. The model explores the relation of NIC and its dimensions (human, social, structural, relational and renewable/development capital) on the readiness of European countries for digital transformation and the digital divide. Significant differences between EU countries in NIC and digital readiness were tested. Multiple linear regression was used to explore the association of each NIC dimension with digital transformation and digital divide within the EU. Findings: Despite a positive association between all dimensions of NIC and digital transformation readiness, the proposed model of NIC was not confirmed in full. Regression analysis proved social capital and working skills, a dimension of human capital, to be the predictors of digital transformation at a national level, able to detect certain elements of digital divide between EU member states. Structural capital, knowledge and education, as dimensions of human capital, were predictors of the digital divide in terms of the integration of digital media in companies. Research limitations/implications: This research has a limited propensity for generalisation due to the lack of common measurement models in the field of NIC exploration. Practical implications: This research offers policy makers an indication of the relationships between NIC and digital transformation, pointing out which dimensions of NIC should be strengthened to allow the EU to meet the challenges of digital economy and to overcome the digital divide between EU member states. Social implications: The use of digital technologies is key in creating active and informed citizens in the public sphere and productive companies and economic growth in the business sphere. Originality/value: This study provides an original theoretical framework and conceptual model through which to analyse the relationship between NIC and digital transformation, which has thus far not been explored at the level of the EU. This research makes an original contribution to the empirical exploration of NIC and produces new insights in the fields of digital transformation and intellectual capital

(Re)distribution and Growth: What is the Role of Social Protection?

Considerations of social justice, as opposed to growth, must provide the linchpin of a social protection agenda because the chronically vulnerable and poor are typically in their predicament because of institutionalised patterns of disadvantage. Furthermore, if the primary purpose of social protection programming is to transform the lives of large numbers of vulnerable people, only a radical agenda based on considerations of (re)distribution, recognition and representation will suffice, precisely because resource transfers alone (including provision of assets or jobs) will not be able to transform the terms of engagement upon which the vulnerable and poor interface with society

Is youth unemployment really the major worry? (AOM)

Youth unemployment is neither the only nor the basic problem of the European labour market. The comparative analysis of unemployment data demonstrates that the unemployment of older people is even more serious. The article proves that the weight of young people in total unemployment has as a tendency been declining in the “inner periphery” of the EU, among them in Central and Eastern European member states (CEECs). The trend is just the opposite in the developed or “core” countries of the Union where youngsters took a higher share in total unemployment in 2012 than 10-12 years ago. In Europe there are millions of young people beyond the active unemployed who do not want to work or think they cannot find a job that fulfils their expectations and refuse to take part in any kind of education or training (NEETs-“Not in Employment, Education or Training”). By estimating the rate of NEETs in the adult population the article claims that the NEETs-phenomenon is not the differentia specifica of the youth. At the end the article details two suggestions for the mitigation of the problem. It concludes that the joblessness in Europe is an old and tendencially worsening problem that cannot be solved by particular policies

Capital Fixity and Mobility in Response to the 2008-09 Crisis: Variegated Neoliberalism in Mexico and Turkey

The article examines the 2008-9 crisis responses in Mexico and Turkey as examples of variegated neoliberalism. The simultaneous interests of corporations and banks relative to the national fixing of capital and their mobility in the form of global investment heavily influenced each state authority’s policy responses to the crisis at the expense of the interests of the poor, workers, and peasantry. Rather than pitching this as either evidence of persistent national differentiation or some Keynesian state resurgence, we argue from a historical materialist geographical framework that the responses of capital and state authorities in Mexico and Turkey actively constitute and reconstitute the global parameters of market regulatory design and neoliberal class rule through each state’s distinct domestic policy formation and crisis management processes. While differing in specific content the form of Mexico and Turkey’s state responses to the crisis ensured continuity in their foregoing neoliberal strategies of development and capital accumulation, most notably in the continued oppression of workers. That is, the prevailing strategy of accumulation continues to be variegated neoliberalism

Different routes, common directions? Activation policies for young people in Denmark and the UK

This article analyses and compares the development of activation policies for young people in Denmark and the UK from the mid-1990s. Despite their diverse welfare traditions and important differences in the organisation and delivery of benefits and services for the unemployed, both countries have recently introduced large-scale compulsory activation programmes for young people. These programmes share a number of common features, especially a combination of strong compulsion and an apparently contradictory emphasis on client-centred training and support for participants. The suggested transition from the ‘Keynesian welfare state’ to the ‘Schumpeterian workfare regime’ is used as a framework to discuss the two countries’ recent moves towards activation. It is argued that while this framework is useful in explaining the general shift towards active labour-market policies in Europe, it alone cannot account for the particular convergence of the Danish and British policies in the specific area of youth activation. Rather, a number of specific political factors explaining the development of policies in the mid-1990s are suggested. The article concludes that concerns about mass youth unemployment, the influence of the ‘dependency culture’ debate in various forms, cross-national policy diffusion and, crucially, the progressive re-engineering of compulsory activation by strong centre-left governments have all contributed to the emergence of policies that mix compulsion and a commitment to the centrality of work with a ‘client-centred approach’ that seeks to balance more effective job seeking with human resource development. However, attempts to combine the apparently contradictory concepts of ‘client-centredness’ and compulsion are likely to prove politically fragile, and both countries risk lurching towards an increasingly workfarist approach