Tax Compliance: An Investigation Using Individual TCMP Data

In this paper, we analyze the tax compliance behavior of US taxpayers by using a 1979 data set that combines information from a random sample of individual tax returns each of which has been thoroughly audited, IRS administrative records, and sociodemographic data from the Census. We find evidence that both audits and tax code provisions affect compliance. However, the effects are significant for only the low and high income groups. Interestingly, previous research has shown that these groups also participate most actively in underground economic activities, the income from which is not reported on any tax returns. Our results for audits suggest that the "ripple" or general deterrent effect of audits may be many times larger than the direct revenue yield of audits for high income taxpayers. Our results for allowable subtractions from income imply that the 1986 Tax Reform Act changes to lower allowable subtractions may have procompliance effects.

Domestic Violence: A Non-random Affair

In this paper, we develop and estimate a model of violence between romantically linked men and women. Physical violence is viewed as both a source of direct gratification and as an instrument for controlling the victim's behavior. Our model is a Stackleberg type model in which the assailant maximizes expected utility subject to the stochastic reaction function of the victim. Our model is estimated by a bounded-?influence regression technique because the process generating violence appears to lead to a heavy-tailed error distribution. Our empirical results suggest that increases in the assailants(i.e. the male's) income serve to increase violence, while increases in the proportion of the year that he is employed serve to decrease violence. Further, the employment effect is larger than the income effect. By way of contrast, our results suggest that the effect of a change in the female's employment or income depends heavily onher economic status relative to the male's. Finally, we find that improvements in the female's opportunites outside the relationship significantly reduce the level of violence.

A Structural Equation Model for Tax Compliance and Auditing

In this paper. we estimate a three equation model for taxpayers' reported income and tax liability and for the probability of an audit. Our work differs from previous studies in that our dependent variables in the compliance equations are taxpayer reports rather than a variable related to auditor estimates of noncompliance and in that we estimate a structural equation for audits. We find that audits stimulate compliance although the effect is not large and is not statistically significant for all groups. Audits are more effective at inducing accurate reporting of subtractions from income than of income. Reduced-form results suggest that IRS activities other than audits have significant compliance effects. Results for the sociodemographic variables are interesting and help to explain some seemingly incongruous findings in the literature. We find compliance to be higher, if anything. in areas with less educated and older taxpayers, a large proportion of households headed by females. and a mostly native born population.

Superrigid subgroups and syndetic hulls in solvable Lie groups

This is an expository paper. It is not difficult to see that every group homomorphism from the additive group Z of integers to the additive group R of real numbers extends to a homomorphism from R to R. We discuss other examples of discrete subgroups D of connected Lie groups G, such that the homomorphisms defined on D can ("virtually") be extended to homomorphisms defined on all of G. For the case where G is solvable, we give a simple proof that D has this property if it is Zariski dense. The key ingredient is a result on the existence of syndetic hulls.Comment: 17 pages. This is the final version that will appear in the volume "Rigidity in Dynamics and Geometry," edited by M. Burger and A. Iozzi (Springer, 2002

Nuclear Charge Radii of Neutron-Deficient Lead Isotopes Beyond N=104 Midshell Investigated by In-Source Laser Spectroscopy

The shape of exotic even-mass 182–190Pb isotopes was probed by measurement of optical isotope shifts providing mean square charge radii (δ⟨r2⟩). The experiment was carried out at the isolde (cern) on-line mass separator, using in-source laser spectroscopy. Small deviations from the spherical droplet model are observed, but when compared to model calculations, those are explained by high sensitivity of δ⟨r2⟩ to beyond mean-field correlations and small admixtures of intruder configurations in the ground state. The data support the predominantly spherical shape of the ground state of the proton-magic Z=82 lead isotopes near neutron midshell (N=104)

Revised magnetostratigraphies confirm low sedimentation rates in Arctic Ocean cores

The general lack of an age-diagnostic biostratigraphy in the Neogene sediments of the abyssal Arctic Ocean has emphasized the importance of magnetostratigraphy in providing chronostratigraphic control in these sediments. Sedimentation rates interpreted from early magnetostratigraphic studies of cores taken from the T3 ice island in the western Mendeleev Plain were estimated to be on the order of 1 mm/103 yr; however, recent amino acid epimerization studies of a core from the same area have suggested sedimentation rates of almost 15 mm/103 yr. This controversy has led us to reexamine the paleomagnetism of several of these cores. Our alternating field demagnetization studies indicate that many of these cores have an intense, high coercivity overprint, acquired after the core was opened, that is adequately removed only after treatment at 20 to 70 mT. We have remeasured samples from two cores after demagnetizations up to 80 mT and can confirm the position of the Brunhes/Matuyama boundary originally identified in the cores. In addition, the Jaramillo and Olduvai subchrons are identified. Average sedimentation rates in these two cores are 2–3 mm/103 yr, similar to the original estimates based on reversal stratigraphy, as well as those determined from recent radiocarbon studies, but incompatible with the amino acid-based dates

The Paleomagnetism of Red Beds and Basalts of the Hettangian Extrusive Zone, Newark Basin, New Jersey

A high unblocking temperature component of magnetization residing in hematite was isolated in 11 outcrop sites and 4 boreholes from Hettangian sedimentary rocks interbedded with the igneous extrusives of the Newark basin. This normal polarity characteristic magnetization has a mean direction (declination = 6.3°, inclination = 12.9° after tilt correction) which is significantly shallower (by about 15°) than reported magnetization directions from the coeval basalts. Based on our demagnetization analysis of representative basalt samples, we attribute the difference between the sedimentary and basaltic directions to contamination of some of the basalt magnetizations by a steeper overprint. An intermediate unblocking temperature magnetization recovered from the extrusive zone sedimentary rocks, consistent with evidence elsewhere in the Newark basin for a pervasive hydrothermal and remagnetization event at about 175 Ma, is a likely cause of the basalt contamination. The characteristic magnetization from the Hettangian sedimentary rocks yields a paleopole (55.5°N, 94.6°E, dp = 5.2°, dm = 5.4°) which lies on the westbound, precusp portion of current paleomagnetic Euler pole apparent polar wander (APW) paths, in contrast with the Newark (and Hartford) basin basalt reference pole positions (such as the "Newark trend" N1 pole) which lie on the eastbound, postcusp portion of the APW path. A precusp pole position is more compatible with the relative age of the Hettangian extrusive zone pole with respect to the Sinemurian/Pliensbachian poles which define the cusp but implies large changes in the rate of APW in the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic

Tectonic Implications of a Remagnetization Event in the Newark Basin

The Newark basin red beds contain a secondary magnetization (the B component) acquired during the Middle Jurassic after the 5°-20° basin-wide northwesterly dip was imparted to the strata of the basin and after most, if not all, of the limb rotation in the Jacksonwald syncline. The B component magnetization was most likely related to the same hydrothermal event which evidently remagnetized many of the igneous intrusions in the basin and reset their K/Ar systems at 175 Ma. The remagnetization of the red beds occurred over a few million years and was approximately coincident with the transition from continental rifting to seafloor spreading in the adjacent North Atlantic. The B component magnetization direction yields a paleomagnetic pole at 74°N, 96°E (K = 63, A_95 = 2.6°, N = 50 sites) after structural correction for 1/3 of the Jacksonwald folding and none of the regional tilt. This pole supports recent evidence for a high-latitude model of Jurassic apparent polar wander for North America

Slow apparent polar wander for North America in the Late Triassic and large Colorado Plateau rotation

Several recent analyses of North American paleomagnetic data suggest fast apparent polar wander (APW) (~0.75°/m.y.) during the Late Triassic and a modest amount (~5°) of Colorado Plateau clockwise rotation. Paleomagnetic poles from the lower (Carnian), middle (Norian), and upper (Hettangian) stratigraphic intervals of the Newark Basin, however, indicate very slow APW over the Late Triassic and provide an alternative interpretation for plateau rotation. The middle Newark pole is supported by positive fold and reversal tests, precluding remagnetization, and agrees well with the pole reported from the Norian Upper Shale Member of the Chinle Formation from east central New Mexico as well as the 214 Ma Manicouagan pole from Quebec. These poles provide a well-defined mean Norian reference pole for cratonic North America at 57.4°N 91.0°E A_95=3.8°. Paleomagnetic poles from the Chinle Formation on the Colorado Plateau (Owl Rock Member, Church Rock Member, and our new result from the upper Chinle in Utah) are also well grouped, consistent with slow APW over the Norian, but give a mean pole position (57.7°N 65.6°E A_95=2.5°) that differs significantly from the Norian pole for cratonic North America. The North American Norian poles can be closely reconciled by a 13.5° ± 3.5° correction for accumulated post-Triassic clockwise rotation of the Colorado Plateau associated with Laramide deformation and Cenozoic opening of the Rio Grande Rift. This estimate of Colorado Plateau rotation is consistent with a systematic discrepancy between plateau and cratonic poles for the Early Triassic, whereas available late Paleozoic and Jurassic poles are judged not to provide definitive constraints on plateau rotation. A revised Triassic and Early Jurassic APW path for North America shows that the virtual standstill in the Norian, the last 15 m.y. of the Triassic, was preceded and followed by intervals of fast (~1°/m.y.) angular plate velocity