Suchergebnisse

Contributing to a social cause can be an important driver for workers in the public and non-profit sector as well as in firms that engage in Corporate Philanthropy or other Corporate Social Responsibility policies. This paper compares the effectiveness of social incentives - that take the form of a donation received by a charity of the subject's choice - to financial incentives. We find that social incentives lead to a 13% rise in productivity, regardless of their form (lump sum or related to performance) or strength. The response is strong for subjects with low initial productivity (30%), while high-productivity subjects do not respond. When subjects can choose the mix of incentives half sacrifice some of their private compensation to increase social compensation, with women more likely than men. Furthermore, offering subjects some discretion in choosing their own payment scheme leads to a substantial improvement in performance. Comparing social incentives to an equally costly increase in private compensation for low productivity subjects reveals that the former are less effective in increasing productivity, but the difference is small and not statistically significant.

In many countries there is a considerable gender gap in enrolment for a bachelor's degree in Economics, arguably an important stepping stone towards positions of influence in policy making and occupations paying relatively high wages. We investigate the sources of this gap by looking in detail at the university admission process in the UK. We use a 50 percent random sample of administrative data covering all university applications in 2008 and find no evidence of universities discriminating against female applicants. What we find is that girls are less likely to apply for a bachelor's degree in Economics to start with, even if once they apply their likelihood of enroling is the same as for boys. Girls are less likely to study Maths in high school and this may deter them from applying to study Economics at the university level. However, even among those who have studied Maths, females are less likely to apply than males, suggesting that differences in the choice of A level subjects cannot explain the whole gap.

In this paper we investigate the relationship between earnings and charitable giving. We set up a real effort experiment, in which subjects enter data in four one-hour occasions and are paid a piece rate. From the second occasion onwards, we randomly assign half of the subjects to a treatment with higher piece rates. At the end we ask subjects whether they want to donate a share of their earnings to a charity of their choice. We find that, despite large differences in earnings due to the different piece rates, subjects receiving the higher piece rate are actually less likely to give, and that givers in the two groups give the same share of their total earnings. Charities receive the same average donation from members of the two groups indicating that subjects in this experiment do not treat charitable giving as a normal good.

The enforcement of compliance with tax regulation is a complex task. This is particularly the case when the administrative capacity of the tax authority is low, as it often happens in developing and transition countries. This paper draws on some international experiences in fighting tax evasion to identify tools that can be used to reduce underreporting by employed labor, small and medium enterprises, self-employed, and professionals. In particular, I analyze the use of minimum thresholds, where taxpayers cannot declare an income below a certain amount or, alternatively, are subject to a higher probability of an audit if they decide to do so. First, I model the impact of minimum thresholds by explicitly taking into account low administrative capacity. The model shows that introducing a threshold creates a spike and a missing middle in the distribution of declared incomes and highlights under which conditions a threshold is likely to increase net revenues. I then analyze two policies used to fight underreporting: the Italian Business Sector Analysis and the Bulgarian Minimum Social Insurance Thresholds. The Italian tax authority infers normal revenues and compensations by small and medium enterprises, self-employed, and professionals from indicators that are difficult to conceal or manipulate. In case the taxpayer decides to declare less than the normal level, the probability of an audit increases and the burden of proof is reversed. Bulgaria has established a system of differentiated minimum social insurance thresholds depending on sector and profession, so that social security contributions cannot be lower than the ones implied by the threshold. To conclude, I appraise the applicability of these two systems in other countries.

This paper examines the interaction between minimum wage legislation and tax evasion by employed labor. I develop a model in which firms and workers may agree to report less than the true amount of earnings to the fiscal authorities. I show that introducing a minimum wage creates a spike in the distribution of declared earnings and induces higher compliance by some agents, thus reducing their disposable income. The comparison of food consumption and of the consumption-income gap before and after the massive minimum wage hike that took place in Hungary in 2001 reveals that households who appeared to benefit from the hike actually experienced a drop compared to similar but unaffected households, thus supporting the prediction of the theory.

Import tariff receipts represent an important share of government revenues in many developing countries and there has recently been a surge in empirical studies showing how evasion in this field is a pervasive phenomenon. In the case of import tariffs, the tax base is the product of quantity and unit value, both of which have to be reported and need to be assessed by the custom authority during an audit. I show that when the fiscal authority has an imperfect detection technology, there is an additional incentive for the taxpayer to underdeclare, as a greater declaration in one dimension actually increases the fine when evasion in the other dimension is detected, and a tax base presenting this feature is subject to more evasion compared to a tax base that can be assessed directly. Also, when enforcement capacity is low, voluntary compliance is higher when the importer is required to declare only the total value of imports.

This paper examines the interaction between minimum wage legislation and tax evasion by employed labor. I develop a model in which firms and workers may agree to report less than the true amount of earnings to the fiscalauthorities. I show that introducing a minimum wage creates a spike in the distribution of declared earnings and induces higher compliance by some agents, thus reducing their disposable income. The comparison of food consumption before and after the massive minimum wage hike that took place in Hungary in 2001 reveals that households who appear to benefit from it actually experienced a drop compared to similar but unaffected household, thus supporting the prediction of the theory.