Inferring Tax Compliance from Pass-through: Evidence from Airbnb Tax Enforcement Agreements

Tax enforcement is especially costly when market participants are difficult to observe. The benefits of enforcement depend crucially on pre-enforcement compliance. We derive an upper bound on pre-enforcement compliance from the pass-through of newly enforced taxes. Using data on Airbnb listings and the platform’s voluntary collection agreements, we find that taxes are paid on, at most, 24% of Airbnb transactions prior to enforcement. We also find that demand for Airbnb listings is inelastic, driving three key insights: the tax burden falls disproportionately on renters, the excess burden is small, and tax enforcement is relatively ineffective at reducing local Airbnb activity

The spatial structure of lithic landscapes : the late holocene record of east-central Argentina as a case study

Fil: Barrientos, Gustavo. División Antropología. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Catella, Luciana. División Arqueología. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Oliva, Fernando. Centro Estudios Arqueológicos Regionales. Facultad de Humanidades y Artes. Universidad Nacional de Rosario; Argentin

Antiinflammatory Therapy with Canakinumab for Atherosclerotic Disease

Background: Experimental and clinical data suggest that reducing inflammation without affecting lipid levels may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Yet, the inflammatory hypothesis of atherothrombosis has remained unproved. Methods: We conducted a randomized, double-blind trial of canakinumab, a therapeutic monoclonal antibody targeting interleukin-1β, involving 10,061 patients with previous myocardial infarction and a high-sensitivity C-reactive protein level of 2 mg or more per liter. The trial compared three doses of canakinumab (50 mg, 150 mg, and 300 mg, administered subcutaneously every 3 months) with placebo. The primary efficacy end point was nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or cardiovascular death. RESULTS: At 48 months, the median reduction from baseline in the high-sensitivity C-reactive protein level was 26 percentage points greater in the group that received the 50-mg dose of canakinumab, 37 percentage points greater in the 150-mg group, and 41 percentage points greater in the 300-mg group than in the placebo group. Canakinumab did not reduce lipid levels from baseline. At a median follow-up of 3.7 years, the incidence rate for the primary end point was 4.50 events per 100 person-years in the placebo group, 4.11 events per 100 person-years in the 50-mg group, 3.86 events per 100 person-years in the 150-mg group, and 3.90 events per 100 person-years in the 300-mg group. The hazard ratios as compared with placebo were as follows: in the 50-mg group, 0.93 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.80 to 1.07; P = 0.30); in the 150-mg group, 0.85 (95% CI, 0.74 to 0.98; P = 0.021); and in the 300-mg group, 0.86 (95% CI, 0.75 to 0.99; P = 0.031). The 150-mg dose, but not the other doses, met the prespecified multiplicity-adjusted threshold for statistical significance for the primary end point and the secondary end point that additionally included hospitalization for unstable angina that led to urgent revascularization (hazard ratio vs. placebo, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.73 to 0.95; P = 0.005). Canakinumab was associated with a higher incidence of fatal infection than was placebo. There was no significant difference in all-cause mortality (hazard ratio for all canakinumab doses vs. placebo, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.83 to 1.06; P = 0.31). Conclusions: Antiinflammatory therapy targeting the interleukin-1β innate immunity pathway with canakinumab at a dose of 150 mg every 3 months led to a significantly lower rate of recurrent cardiovascular events than placebo, independent of lipid-level lowering. (Funded by Novartis; CANTOS ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01327846.

The Optimist\u27s Daughter and its Journey to the Stage

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College and The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College

The Mississippian archaeological record on the Malden Plain, Southeast Missouri: local variability in evolutionary perspective

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1988This is a study of Middle Mississippi expressions on the Malden Plain, Southeast Missouri. Middle Mississippi is recognized as a highly variable culture-historic unit of eastern North America during which late prehistoric populations reached their classic expression. In this research, the explanation of variability in the archaeological record is cast in an evolutionary framework. Evolutionary theory generates a model in which change is viewed as the differential persistence of alternative traits through time. This model has two important implications for examining archaeological materials and the kind of interpretive frameworks that must be built to do so. First, variation is placed in a causal role in that change arises from empirical variation to produce change. Second, evolutionary explanations account for functional traits. These implications are used to generate expectations for Mississippian assemblages from the Malden Plain. Models regarding chronology and settlement patterns that have been applied to adjacent regions of the Central Mississippi Valley and extrapolated to the Malden Plain are also evaluated.The results of this analysis indicate that chronological trajectories can be expected to diverge from one local area to another, especially when functional variables are considered. Although stylistic sequences on the Malden Plain correspond generally to those developed for adjacent regions, there are important divergences which reflect the geographic isolation of this area.This analysis also indicates that classic Mississippian settlement pattern models do not account for the full range of variation, at least for the Malden Plain. Here, settlement configuration is seen as a response to local scale factors that are not accommodated by these models. Furthermore, inferences regarding regional integration and differential site function on the basis of sizes of population aggregates, nucleation, and mounds should be reconsidered. These features of Mississippian settlement patterns appear to have been components within a more flexible systemic context

Your words matter: What you say and how you think

<div> <div> <div> <div> <p>Teltser, S.*, & Kurczek, J. (2013, April). Your words matter. <i>Oral presentation at the Coe College Student Research Symposium</i>, Cedar Rapids, IA.</p><p> Recent research has demonstrated that areas of the brain involved in sensory processing are also involved in simulation (Kosslyn, Thompson, Kim & Alpert, 1995). </p> <p> Speer et al. (2009) found that people reading a story simulated the events while reading </p> <p> Further, the neural theory of language has also proposed that language comprehension involves simulation (Feldman & Narayanan, 2004).</p> <p> The link to metaphors is through the theory of perceptual symbols systems (Barsalou, 1999) and conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff, 1992) which state that understanding of concepts requires a reactivation of our previous experiences  </p><p> </p><div> <div> <div> <div> <p> We understand more abstract concepts through our experiences/simulations of our actual experiences </p> <p> We propose that when using metaphors (cognitive devices that allow us to understand one concept in terms of another) we activate primary sensory cortices </p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div