Family Versus Public Solidarity: Theory and Experiment

We present an overlapping generations model with two families who can guarantee old age support either by intra-family transfers from child to parent or via a tax-financed public pension system encompassing both families.We derive the individually and family-specific optimal decisions and present some more behavioristic hypotheses.Our experimental observations allow conclusions on (1) whether raising taxes crowds out voluntary transfers, (2) how income distributions influence family and public solidarity, and (3) whether participants prefer more to less public solidarity.voting;pensions;families;overlapping generations

A conceptual approach to the use of Cost Benefit and Multi Criteria Analysis in natural hazard management

International audienceDecision-making for protection measures against natural hazards entails major complexities for final decision makers. The issue in question does not only implicate a variety of criteria that need to be considered but also scarce financial resources make the allocation decision a difficult task. Furthermore, these decisions appear to be multidisciplinary in nature. Stakeholders from experts over politicians and the public are among the affected parties in making and dealing with the consequences of such decisions. In order to capture the complexity that arises when incorporating the varieties of interests as well as impacts protection measures have on the environment, the economy and society, transparent and multidisciplinary decision support techniques are needed. This paper looks at how Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA), a tool already applied to decisions concerning protective measures, and Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA), even though new to the field as such but already successfully practiced in other environmental areas, perform according to the abovementioned criteria. A conceptual overview of the methodologies will be given along with a discussion of the respective strengths and weaknesses. Looking at past applications, this overview gives an analysis about the potential of socio economics in its contribution to natural hazard research

Family Versus Public Solidarity:Theory and Experiment

We present an overlapping generations model with two families who can guarantee old age support either by intra-family transfers from child to parent or via a tax-financed public pension system encompassing both families.We derive the individually and family-specific optimal decisions and present some more behavioristic hypotheses.Our experimental observations allow conclusions on (1) whether raising taxes crowds out voluntary transfers, (2) how income distributions influence family and public solidarity, and (3) whether participants prefer more to less public solidarity.

The Effects of Rewards on Tax Compliance Decisions

We analyze how the redistribution of tax revenues influences tax compliance behavior by applying different reward mechanisms. In our experiment, subjects have to make two decisions. In the first stage, subjects decide on the contribution to a public good. In the second stage, subjects declare their income from the first stage for taxation. Our main results are threefold: First, from an aggregated perspective, rewards have a negative overall effect on tax compliance. Second, we observe that rewards affect the decision of taxpayers asymmetrically. In particular, rewards have either no effect (for those who are rewarded) or a negative effect (for those who are not rewarded) on tax compliance. Thus, if a high compliance rate of taxpayers is preferred, rewards should not be used by the tax authority. Third, we find an inverse u-shaped relationship between public good contribution and tax compliance. In particular, up to a certain level, tax compliance increases with subjects' own contributions to the public good. Above this level, however, tax compliance decreases with the public good contribution

Do Democracies Breed Rent-Seeking Behavior?

Using objective institutional historical data we test the link between extent, duration, and transparency in democracies and rent-seeking behavior using time-series and panel data approaches. In this paper we focus on the case of Uruguay, an ethnically homogeneous country. We find three main results. First, democratic regimes are negatively linked with rent-seeking actions. Second, the longer the duration of democracy, the less rent-seeking in a society. Third, legislation enacted more transparently is negatively correlated with rent-seeking behavior. Our results are robust to the use of different econometric methods and basic robustness tests and are consistent with prevailing theory

Rent Seeking and Democracy in Latin America: What Drives What?

Drawing on previously unused objective institutional data, we provide evidence for the causal link between rent-seeking behavior and democracy in Uruguay, a country where both rent-seeking behavior and political shifts have varied widely in the last 80 years, but where ethnolinguistic heterogeneity and income inequality have remained historically low. The latter helps better identify some pure political interactions and how they are linked with rent-seeking outcomes. We find that the presence and duration of democratic regimes appear to have been conducive to a decrease in rent-seeking actions in Uruguay, although the reduction in rent seeking does not appear to have had a bearing on the quality of democratic regime in the country. While the duration of democratic regime may impact rent-seeking behavior, rent seeking also displays a causal link to democratic duration

Tax Perception - An Empirical Survey

This paper gives a survey of the experimental literature on the perception (bias) of individuals with respect to their own tax burden and its effect on economic decisions. Six strands of literature are discussed: (1) perception of marginal tax rates, (2) influence of tax complexity on tax perception, (3) taxation and incentives to work, (4) tax salience, (5) tax morale and fairness and (6) money illusion, perceived inflation and fiscal drag. The literature discussed contains more evidence for than against a perception bias