Tax return as a political statement

The accuracy of a tax return is usually interpreted as an outcome of the tax evasion decision by an individual. However, in non-democratic regimes with predatory blackmail tax systems it is possible that large sums voluntarily reported by influential politicians or businessmen may be used as political statements. By openly acknowledging one's personal income an individual can signal the strength of one's position, or, on the contrary, the submissiveness to the political leadership. In this paper we explore the idea of the tax return as a political statement and test it using a unique dataset of the tax returns filed by the Russian regional governors and the members of their families for the year 2009. Our results conjecture that Russian governors may deliberately file their tax return as a political statement to signal their strength vis-à-vis the central government. --tax compliance,communication in non-democracies,Russian regions

Riparian Management to Protect Water Quality

The agricultural landscape has four major sources of non-point source (NPS) pollutants. These are: 1) surface and subsurface runoff which carry sediment and agricultural chemicals to streams; 2) eroding streambanks which can contribute more than fifty percent of the sediment load to the stream; 3) field tile drain8 which contribute the highest concentrations of soluble agricultural chemicals to streams; and 4) livestock grazing of streamside or riparian areas which contribute to bank instability and add animal waste and pathogens to the water

Riparian Management for Water Quality, the Bear Creek Example: Getting the Message Out

While a considerable body of evidence confirms that exiting vegetated streamside zones can be effective sinks for nonpoint source pollution (Castelle et al. 1994, Osborne and Kovacic 1993, Lowrance 1992, Cooper et al. 1987, Jacobs and Gilliam 1985, Lowrance et al. 1985, 1984, Peterjohn and Correll 1984), little information is available for restored or constructed streamside buffer systems. To demonstrate the benefits of properly functioning riparian zones in the heavily row-cropped midwestern U.S., the Agroecology Issue Team of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and the Iowa State Agroforestry Research Team (IStART) are conducting research on the design and establishment of integrated riparian management systems. The purpose of these systems is to restore the essential ecological functions that these riparian areas once provided. Specific objectives of such buffers are to intercept eroding soil and agricultural chemicals from adjacent crop fields, slow flood waters, stabilize streambanks, provide wildlife habitat, and improve the biological integrity of aquatic ecosystems

International Law in the Minds:On the Ideational Basis of the Making, the Changing and the Unmaking of International Law

Usual accounts of international law-making and international legal change focus on formal secondary rules. Others include societal and institutional facts. But international law consists of ideas too. Arguably it exists only in minds. To be sure then, the conditions of ideational change codetermine when and how international law is made, unmade, and otherwise changes. This is what this article is after. It first draws a general sketch of international legal change (including its making and unmaking) to then zoom in on its ideational elements, with a narrower focus on market opportunities for ideas. These market opportunities, it is argued, are determined by: paradigm shifts, struggles between competing schools of thought, the formation of distinct epistemic subfields, the core individuals’ different capitals, and changes in beliefs

Scholarship as Fun

One theme that traverses much of Pierre Schlag’s work is a sense of profound humanity—the idea that thinking and writing about the law can and should be a deeply, genuinely human activity—an activity for which we can, and should, break up many of the barriers that stand between us, between who we really are, and what we think and write. It is an activity for which we should put aside our pretences and insecurities and the attached formalisms and exaggerations behind which we so often hide, and which in the end constrain our humanity so much, as they take on a dynamic of their own, a siloed technocratic rationality. It is a theme based on a belief that human beings are fundamentally good, despite all their many quirks and imperfections and doubts and destructive traits. It is a theme based on a notion that our humanness is a resource that should be tapped rather than reined in

Riparian Management for Water Quality: The Bear Creek Example

To demonstrate the benefits of properly functioning riparian zones in the heavily row-cropped midwestern U.S., the Agroecology Issue Team of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and the Iowa State Agroforestry Research Team (!StART) are conducting research on the design and establishment of integrated riparian management systems. The purpose of these systems is to restore the essential ecological functions that these riparian areas once provided. Specific objectives of such buffers are to intercept eroding soil and agricultural chemicals from adjacent crop fields, slow flood waters, stabilize streambanks, provide wildlife habitat, improve the biological integrity of aquatic ecosystems, and provide diversified marketable products (biomass, wood products, etc.

How to Design a Riparian Buffer for Agricultural Land

The purpose of this note is to identify four basic steps to follow when designing a riparian buffer. The design steps should determine what benefits are needed, identify the best types of vegetation to provide the needed benefits, determine the minimum acceptable buffer width, and develop an installation and maintenance plan