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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.

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 trust. Most studies have focused on social or generalized trust, while those investigating international trust or trust in international organizations are rare. This empirical study analyses a cross-section of individuals using micro-data of the World Values Survey wave III (1995-1997), covering 38 countries, to investigate trust in international organizations, specifically trust in the United Nations. The results suggest that not only socio-demographic and socio-economic factors have an impact on citizens' trust in the UN, but also political factors. We also observe externalities. Political trust at the state level leads to a higher trust at the international level. On the other hand, if a state is perceived as dysfunctional, the level of trust declines.

SummaryThe expansion of economics to 'non‐market topics' has received increased attention in recent years. The economics of sports (football) is such a sub‐field. This paper reports empirical evidence of team and referee performances in the FIFA World Cup 2002. The results reveal that being a hosting nation has a significant impact on the probability of winning a game. Furthermore, the strength of a team measured with the FIFA World Ranking does not play the important role presumed, which indicates that the element of uncertainty is working. The findings also indicate that the influence of a referee on the game result should not be neglected. Finally, the previous World Cup experiences seem to have the strongest impact on referees' performances during the game.

The intention of this paper is to analyse how audit courts affect tax morale, controlling in a multivariate analysis for a broad variety of potential factors. Switzerland with its variety of audit court competences among the cantons has been analysed. With data from the ISSP for 1999 evidence has been found that a higher audit court competence has a significantly positive effect on tax morale. Thus, the results in Switzerland suggest that in the cantons where audits courts are not just knights without swords or toothless tigers, they help improve taxpayers' tax morale and thus citizens' intrinsic motivation to pay taxes.

In the tax compliance literature, we observe a lack of empirical evidence on the degree of tax morale in developing countries. Thus, our paper as a novelty focuses on Latin America, analysing tax morale as dependent variable and searching for factors that systematically affect tax morale, working with the two data sets Latinobarómetro and World Values Survey. Our findings indicate that there is a significant correlation between tax morale and the size of shadow economy. Furthermore, people who said they knew/have heard about practised tax avoidance have a significant lower tax morale than others. Looking at individuals perception of reasons for tax evasion we found that the tax burden, lacking honesty, and corruption are seen as the main factors. We observed a significantly lower tax morale in South America/Mexico than in the Central America/Caribbean area. Furthermore, trust in the president and the officials, the belief that other individuals obey the law and a pro democratic attitude have a significant positive effect on tax morale.

This paper analyses tax morale in several Asian countries. The descriptive analysis indicates that tax morale is very low in the Philippines and relatively high in Japan, China, and Bangladesh. In general Asia has a higher tax morale than OECD countries, which might indicate cultural differences. The paper also analyses tax morale as a dependent variable and thus gives answers to what shapes tax morale. Pooling the Asian countries we find, e.g., that trust in the government and the legal system have a positive effect on tax morale. These results remain robust for India and Japan in a time series analysis.