Trust in International Organizations: An Empirical Investigation Focusing on the United Nations

The literature on social capital has strongly increased in the last two decades, but there still is a lack of substantial empirical evidence about the determinants of international trust. This empirical study analyses a cross-section of individuals, using micro-data from the World Values Survey, covering 38 countries, to investigate trust in international organizations, specifically in the United Nations. In line with previous studies on international trust we find that political trust matters. We also find that social trust is relevant, but contrary to previous studies the results are less robust. Moreover, the paper goes beyond previous studies investigating also the impact of geographic identification, corruption and globalization. We find that a higher level of (perceived) corruption reduces the trust in the UN in developed countries, but increases trust in developing and transition countries. A stronger identification with the world as a whole also leads to a higher trust in the UN and a stronger capacity to act globally in economic and political environment increases trust in the UN.International Organizations, United Nations, International Trust, Political Trust, Social Trust, Corruption, Globalization

Comment on “The Spreading of Disorderâ€

Keizer et al. (2008) explore disorderly settings linked to a process of spreading norm violation. The results show that if norm violating behavior becomes more common, it negatively affects compliance in other areas. This comment addresses problematic areas in their studies and provides new empirical evidence of a cross-norm inhibition effect that deals with such criticism.disorder, broken windows theory, pro-social behavior, contagion effect.

The Impact of Direct Democracy and Local Autonomy on Tax Morale in Switzerland

This paper analyses the impact of direct democracy and local autonomy on tax morale and the size of the shadow economy. We use two different data sets on tax morale at the individual level (World Values Survey and International Social Survey Programme) and the macro data of the size of the shadow economy to systematically analyse the effects of institutions in Switzerland, a country where participation rights and the degree of federalism vary across different cantons. The findings suggest that direct democratic rights and local autonomy, have a significantly positive effect on tax morale and the size of the shadow economy.Tax Morale, Shadow Economy, Tax Compliance, Tax Evasion, Direct Democracy, LocalAutonomy

Historical Excellence' in Soccer World Cup Tournaments: Empirical Evidence with Data from 1930 to 2002

Introduction – 1. Setting an empirical model to measure WorldCup soccer success – 2. Overview and discussion of the empiricalresults - 3. Summary of the results and some concluding remarks

Economics of Sports: A Note to this Special Issue

The expansion of economics to other spheres of life, including politics, war, crime, religion, or in particular sports can be seen in line with Hirshleifer (2002) as a breath of fresh air in economics. Although one can always criticize the generalizability of results developed with sports data, sporting events can still be seen as economic (miniature) environments. There is no reason not to acknowledge that athletes, for example, behave according to two key elements in economics, namely incentives and constraints. Focal economic concepts such as prices, opportunity costs or property rights can be nicely investigated in sports markets and are supposed to drive the behaviour of their key actors. An essential strength of sports events is the fact that they take place in a controlled environment generating therefore outcomes that come very close to holding other things equal, providing therefore a real-world laboratory for testing economic theories. Researchers have the chance of working with highly reliable data (low variable errors) and reduced omitted variables biases. The advantages can be visualized using the Tour de France as an example. The ranking of a cyclist at the Tour de France, his performance in the mountains or the time trials are clearly observable and are free of discrepancies compared to well known and often used traditional economic variables such as GDP or CPI. Statistics can be adjusted based on the outside conditions (stadium, weather conditions etc.). A Tour de France takes place in a controlled environment. All riders perform in the same terrain at the same time with the same outside restrictions such as the weather. Further external influences are controlled by the rules (law) of the event, as they are the same for all riders. Thus, many factors can be held constant and therefore the situation is much like a controlled environment. Even though a cycling event allows social and economic interactions and is thus less controlled than a laboratory experiment one of the main advantages is that the participation evokes actual and real processes (e.g., strong monetary incentives) in an environment outside a laboratory setting (Goff and Tollison 1990).doping; economics of sport; illegal activities

Tax morale, eastern Europe and European enlargement

This study tries to remedy the current lack of tax compliance research analyzing tax morale in 10 Eastern European countries that joined the European Union in 2004 or 2007. By exploring tax morale differences between 1999 and 2008, it shows that tax morale has decreased in 7 out of 10 Eastern European countries. This lack of sustainability may support the incentive based conditionality hypothesis that the European Union only has a limited ability to influence tax morale over time. The author observes that events and processes at the country level are crucial to understanding tax morale. Factors such as perceived government quality and trust in the justice system and the government are positively correlated with tax morale in 2008.Taxation&Subsidies,Debt Markets,Subnational Economic Development,Emerging Markets,National Governance

The Causes of Corruption: Evidence from China

In this study we explore in detail the causes of corruption in China using two different sets of data at the regional level (provinces and cities). We observe that regions with more anti-corruption efforts, histories of British rule, higher openness, more access to media and relatively higher wages of government employees are markedly less corrupt; while social heterogeneity, regulation, abundance of resource and state-owned enterprises substantially breed regional corruption. Moreover, fiscal decentralization is discovered to depress corruption significantly, while administrative decentralization fosters local corruption. We also find that there is currently a positive relationship between corruption and economic development in China that is mainly driven by the transition to a market economy.Corruption; China; Government; Decentralization; Deterrence; Social Heterogenity

Corruption and Social Interaction: Evidence from China

We explore theoretically and empirically whether social interaction, including local and global interaction, influences the incidence of corruption. We first present an interaction-based model on corruption that predicts that the level of corruption is positively associated with social interaction. Then we empirically verify the theoretical prediction using within-country evidence at the province-level in China during 1998 to 2007. Panel data evidence clearly indicates that social interaction has a statistically significantly positive effect on the corruption rate in China. Our findings, therefore, underscore the relevance of social interaction in understanding corruption.Corruption, Social Interaction, China

Democracy, Property Rights, Income Equality, and Corruption

This paper presents theoretical and empirical evidence on the nexus between corruption and democracy. We establish a political economy model where the effect of democracy on corruption is conditional on income distribution and property rights protection. Our empirical analysis with cross-national panel data provides evidence that is consistent with the theoretical prediction. Moreover, the effect of democratization on corruption depends on the protection of property rights and income equality which shows that corruption is a nonlinear function of these variables. The results indicate that democracy will work better as a control of corruption if the property rights system works and there is a low level of income inequality. On the other hand if property rights are not secured and there is strong income inequality, democracy may even lead to an increase of corruption. In addition, property rights protection and the mitigation of income inequality contribute in a strong manner to the reduction of corruption.Corruption, Democracy, Income inequality, Property rights

Tax Morale and Fiscal Autonomy: Evidence from Germany

Why people pay their taxes voluntarily is a key puzzle in the public finance literature. Some suggest that factors such as the level of tax morale, defined as the intrinsic motivation to pay taxes, affects compliance behaviour. While there have been numerous studies that have explored tax compliance or tax evasion, very few have explored the concept of tax morale in any detail. The basic intention of the empirical part is to analyse how fiscal autonomy affects tax morale in Germany. This also allows fill a gap in the tax compliance literature, which has rarely analysed the impact of fiscal autonomy on tax compliance or tax morale. Strong evidence has been found that a higher fiscal autonomy leads to a higher tax morale, controlling in a multivariate analysis for additional factors.