"Laffer paradox, Leviathan, and Political Contest"

This paper considers a political contest model wherein self-interested politicians seek rents from the public budget, while general voters make political efforts to protest against politicians' rent seeking directly (for example, through voting in referendums such as the passage of Proposition 13) or indirectly (for example, through donating money to organized groups such as the National Taxpayer Union). We show that the political contest may ironically lead to the Laffer paradox; that is, rent-seeking politicians may intend to set the tax rate higher than the revenue-maximizing rate. For taming Leviathans, political protests may not be as effective as competition among governments.

"Tax Competition, Public Good Provision, and Income Redistribution: The Case of Linear Capital Income Tax"

This paper considers a tax competition model in which regional government activities include income redistribution as well as public good provision. To incorporate the regional government function of income redistribution, we extend the tax system from the stylized proportional capital income tax to the linear capital income tax: the revenue collected from capital taxation in each region is used not only to provide the regional public good but also to offer a uniform lump-sum grant to each individual in the region. In contrast to Hoyt's (1991) finding that the extent to which public goods are undersupplied is monotonically increasing in the number of competing regions, we show that, regardless of the number of competing regions, all heterogeneous individuals concur with each other on the first-best provision of public goods; on the other hand, the size of income redistribution is monotonically decreasing in the number of competing regions.

The Firm as a Community Explaining Asymmetric Behavior and Downward Rigidity of Wages

This paper models the firm as a community à la Akerlof (1980) to account for asymmetric behavior, and in particular, downward rigidity of wages. It is shown that, through social interaction among workers in the firm community, wage cuts can give rise to a large, discontinuous fall in labor productivity (known as “catastrophe”). Furthermore, this large fall in labor productivity will persist or display inertia (known as “hysteresis”) even if the wages are restored to the pre-cut level and beyond. Our catastrophe/hysteresis finding with respect to wage cuts can rationalize the downward rigidity of wage behavior, and is consistent with the interview evidence of fragile worker morale emphasized by Bewley (1999) and others in explaining why employers are sensitive to and refrain from cutting worker pay.Wage rigidity, Firm community, Catastrophe, Hysteresis

On the Budget-Constrained IRS: Equilibrium and Equilibrium and efficiency

This paper extends Graetz, Reinganum and Wildes (1986) seminal work on tax compliance to the real-world scenario where the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) faces a budget constraint imposed upon her by the Congress. The paper consists of two parts. The first part is positive we characterize the equilibria resulting from the interaction between taxpayers and the budget-constrained IRS. The second part is normative - we examine the effeciency implication of varying the size of the budget allocated to the IRS. It is shown that, to mitigate or eliminate the so-called congestion e¤ect, the IRS should be sufficiently budgeted and, in particular, we provide a case for the policy prescription that the size of the budget allocated to the IRS should be expanded as long as an additional dollar allocated could return more than an additional dollar of tax revenue.

Receiprocity and Downward Wage Rigidity

The employment relationship is to a large extent characterized by incomplete contracts, in which workers have a considerable degree of discretion over the choice of their work effort. This discretion at work kicks in the potential importance of “gift exchange” or reciprocity between workers and employers in their employment relationship. Built on the seminal work of Akerlof (1980), this paper adopts a social norm approach to model reciprocity in labor markets and theoretically derives two versions of downward wage rigidity. The first version explains why employers may adopt a high wage policy far above the competitive level. This version is not a novel finding in the existing literature and is mainly served as a benchmark for later comparison in the current paper. Our main contribution lies in the second version in which not nly may employers adopt a high wage policy far above the competitive level, but one can also account for the asymmetric behavior of wages and explain why employers are hesitant about wage cuts in the presence of negative shocks. We argue that this second and stronger version of downward wage rigidity has moved the efficiency wage theory a step forward.Reciprocity, Downward Wage Rigidity, Social Norm, Efficiency Wage

Evaluating the use of personal networks to circumvent formal processes: a case study of vruzki in Bulgaria

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the prevalence and distribution of the use of personal connections to circumvent formal procedures by soliciting favours for and from others, known as vruzki, and how this can be explained and tackled. Reporting data from 2,005 face-to-face interviews conducted in late 2015 in Bulgaria, the finding is that 30 per cent of respondents had used vruzki in the 12 months prior to the survey, particularly when accessing medical services and finding a job. Estimating a logit model and then calculating the marginal effects, the population groups significantly more likely to have used vruzki are those whose norms, values and beliefs are not in symmetry with the formal laws and regulations, perceiving the penalties and detection risks as higher, those reporting their financial situation as very comfortable, and the highest income groups, but also younger people, the unemployed, and those living in larger households. The paper concludes by discussing the theoretical and policy implications along with the future research required

Evaluating the use of personal networks to circumvent formal processes: a case study of vruzki in Bulgaria

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the prevalence and distribution of the use of personal connections to circumvent formal procedures by soliciting favours for and from others, known as vruzki, and how this can be explained and tackled. Reporting data from 2,005 face-to-face interviews conducted in late 2015 in Bulgaria, the finding is that 30 per cent of respondents had used vruzki in the 12 months prior to the survey, particularly when accessing medical services and finding a job. Estimating a logit model and then calculating the marginal effects, the population groups significantly more likely to have used vruzki are those whose norms, values and beliefs are not in symmetry with the formal laws and regulations, perceiving the penalties and detection risks as higher, those reporting their financial situation as very comfortable, and the highest income groups, but also younger people, the unemployed, and those living in larger households. The paper concludes by discussing the theoretical and policy implications along with the future research required

Collegiate Student-Athletes’ Privacy Management Strategies and Their Impact on Twitter Usage Behaviors

This study examines collegiate student-athletes’ privacy management strategies and the impact on their Twitter usage behaviors from Communication Privacy Management Theory (CPM). A questionnaire was used to recruit student-athletes from a national sample of NCAA Division 1 universities in the United States. Three hierarchical regression analyses conclude that collegiate student-athletes’ privacy management strategies would affect their Twitter usage behaviors, such as frequency of checking Twitter, minutes spent on the platform and tweet content . This research extends CPM to the collegiate sports context. Implications are discussed