Itemised Deductions: A Device to Reduce Tax Evasion

Direct incentives and punishments are the most common instruments to fight tax evasion. The theoretical literature disregarded indirect schemes, such as itemised deductions, in which an agent has an interest in that other agents declare their revenue. Itemised deductions provide an incentive for consumers to declare their purchases, and this forces sellers to do the same. I show that, for any level of taxation, it is possible to increase tax proceeds by choosing the proper level of itemised deduction; the cost for the government on the consumers’ side is more than compensated by the extra proceeds on the sellers’ side.Tax evasion;itemised deductions;substitutes goods;quantity competition

Information vs Competition:How Platform Design Affects Profits and Surplus

We study the design of online platforms that aggregate information and facilitate transactions. Two different designs can be observed in the market: revealing platforms that disclose the identity of transaction partners(e.g.Booking) and anonymous platforms that do not (e.g. Hotwire).To analyse the implications of this design choice for profit sand surplus, we develop a model in which consumers differ in their location as well as their preferred productvariety. Sellers offer their products for sale both directly(`offine') and indirectly via the platform(`online') but are unable to credibly disclose the productvariety they offer when selling online. The model gives rise to a novel trade-off associated with the anonymous platform design: offline, consumers observe location but not variety; online, they observe variety but not location. While there vealing design leads to more informed consumers and better matches, the anonymous design allows sellers top rice discriminate and introduces competition between sellers whose markets would otherwise be segmented. We show that the comparison between the designs depends crucially on the relative importance of information about location vis-a-vis information about variety. For an intermediate range, the anonymous design outperforms there vealing design in terms of both profits and welfare

Centralization and Accountability: Theory and Evidence from the Clean Air Act.

This paper studies fi scal federalism when voter information varies across regions. We develop a model of political agency with heterogeneously informed voters. Rent-seeking politicians provide public goods to win the votes of the informed. As a result, rent extraction is lower in regions with higher information. In equilibrium, electoral discipline has decreasing returns. Thus, political centralization efficiently reduces aggregate rent extraction. The model predicts that a region' s benefi ts from centralization are decreasing in its residents' information. We test this prediction using panel data on pollutant emissions across U.S. states. The 1970 Clean Air Act centralized environmental policy at the federal level. In line with our theory, we fi nd that centralization induced a differential decrease in pollution for uninformed relative to informed states

Bladder cancer mortality of workers exposed to aromatic amines: analysis of models of carcinogenesis.

The effects of various factors were evaluated on both relative risk (multiplicative model), and absolute excess risk (additive model) of bladder cancer among 664 workers of a dyestuff factory in Northern Italy. These workers were exposed to aromatic amines in fairly constant working conditions from 1922 to 1970, and were employed for at least one year. They were followed up till the end of 1981 for a total of 12,302 man-years at risk. Under both models, the risk was greater for workers directly involved in aromatic amine manufacture than for those with only intermittent exposure. There was no marked effect of age at first exposure on the absolute excess risk of bladder cancer, but the relative risk was strongly and negatively related to age at first exposure. Under the multistage theory of carcinogenesis, this pattern of risk indicates an early stage effect. Absolute excess risk increased sharply during exposure, and continued to rise, although less sharply, after exposure had ceased. Relative risk, however, decreased after cessation of exposure, indicating a possible late stage effect. Thus, the results derived from both additive and multiplicative models are not in contrast when interpreted in terms of the multistage theory of carcinogenesis, though they are not totally consistent with a single-stage effect, either early or late. Aromatic amines may act on a stage somewhere between the first and penultimate, or on more than one stage of the process of carcinogenesis. Alternatively, it is possible that imprecision in the job classification or other observational problems may obscure the trends, or produce fictitious trends in the effects of variables such as age at first exposure and time since last exposure. Finally, such a pattern of trends could emerge if there were only two stages and the first and penultimate stage were the same

Bladder cancer mortality of workers exposed to aromatic amines: an updated analysis.

none6nonePIOLATTO G; NEGRI E; LAVECCHIA C; PIRA E; DECARLI A; PETO JPIOLATTO G; NEGRI E; LAVECCHIA C; PIRA E; DECARLI A; PETO

Taxing high income earners: tax avoidance and mobility

The taxation of high-income earners is of importance to every country and is the subject of a considerable amount of recent academic research. Such high-income earners contribute substantial amounts of tax and generate significant positive spillovers, but are also highly mobile: a 1% increase in the top marginal income tax rate increases out-migrations by around 1.5 to 3%. We review research into taxation of high-income earners to provide a synthesis of existing theoretical and empirical understanding. We offer various avenues for potential future theoretical and empirical research

Treating Thalassemia Patients with Luspatercept: An Expert Opinion Based on Current Evidence

Luspatercept has recently been approved for the treatment of beta-thalassemia and its use in clinical practice has been increasing. As it is the first erythroid maturation drug available for this diagnosis, the expertise about its use is still limited. To address this point, and to promote awareness and guide the clinical use of luspatercept in beta-thalassemia, this paper was developed as a consensus by experts from the Italian Society of Thalassemia and Hemoglobinopathies (SITE). After a brief presentation of the core features of luspatercept, a comprehensive set of questions is addressed, covering relevant aspects for the practical management of this new therapeutic option