Search results

This paper presents a theoretical model and empirical evidence to explain the occurrence of tax amnesties. We treat amnesties as endogenous, resulting from a strategic game between many taxpayers discounting future payments from punishment and a government that balances costs and benefits of amnesty programs. From the model we derive hypotheses about the factors that should influence the occurrence of tax amnesties. To test these predictions empirically, we rely on amnesty information from US States between 1981 and 2011. In line with the theoretical model, our empirical findings suggest that the likelihood of amnesties is mainly driven by a government's fiscal requirements and the taxpayers' expectations on future amnesties.

AbstractThis paper proposes a quantal response learning model to explain sellers' pricing and learning behaviour observed in a laboratory Bertrand market experiment. In the model, sellers hold beliefs about their opponents' strategies and play quantal best responses to these beliefs. After each round, sellers update their beliefs based on the information learned from previous play. The results indicate that when sellers have full past price information, the model explains the price distributions within periods and the dynamics across periods. The fit is particularly good if one allows for sellers being risk averse. In contrast, quantal response equilibrium does not work well.

This paper presents a theoretical model and empirical evidence to explain the occurrence of tax amnesties. We treat amnesties as endogenous, resulting from a strategic game between many taxpayers discounting future payments from punishment and a government that trades off costs and benefits of amnesty programs. From the model we derive hypotheses about the factors that should in uence the occurrence of tax amnesties. For our empirical test we rely on amnesty information from US States between 1981 and 2011. In line with the theoretical model, our empirical findings suggest that the likelihood of amnesties is mainly driven by a government's fiscal requirements and the taxpayers' expectations on future amnesties.

This paper presents a theoretical model and empirical evidence to explain the occurrence of tax amnesties. We treat amnesties as endogenous, resulting from a strategic game between many tax payers discounting future payments from punishment and a government that trades off costs and benefits of amnesty programmes. From the model we derive hypotheses about the factors that should influence the occurrence of tax amnesties. For our empirical test we rely on amnesty information from US states between 1981 and 2011. In line with the theoretical model, our empirical findings suggest that the likelihood of amnesties is mainly driven by a government's fiscal requirements and the taxpayers' expectations on future amnesties.

Using the Panama Papers, we show that the beginning of media reporting on expropriations and property confiscations in a country increases the probability that offshore entities are incorporated by agents from the same country in the same month. This result is robust to the use of country-year fixed effects and the exclusion of tax havens. Further analysis shows that the effect is driven by countries with non-corrupt and effective governments, which supports the notion that offshore entities are incorporated when reasonably well-intended and well-functioning governments become more serious about fighting organized crime by confiscating proceeds of crime.