We formulate a model to explain why the lack of political competition may stifle economic performance and use the United States as a testing ground for the model’s predictions, exploiting the 1965 Voting Rights Act which helped break the near monpoly on political power of the Democrats in...

Tax evasion analysis is typically based on an expected utility theory (EUT) framework. However, this leads to several qualitative and quantitative puzzles. Given actual probabilities of audit and penalty rates the return on evasion ranges from 91-98 percent. So why don’t most of us evade?...

In this paper the employment of Scottish and English self- reporting drug users is considered using data drawn from the Scottish and British Crime Surveys. Univariate and bivariate estimates of the probability of being employed reveal a robustly negative and statistically significant association...

This paper presents estimates of a dynamic individual-level model of cannabis consumption, using data from a 1998 survey of young people in Britain. The econometric model is a split-population generalisation of the non-stationary Poisson process, allowing for a separate dynamic process for...

This paper presents an econometric model that combines macroeconomic time series data with historical series relating to political instability in Israel during the Intifada period, in order to provide a conservative estimate of the extent to which variations in economic performance over time...

This paper incorporates tax morale into the Allingham Sandmo (1972) model of income tax evasion. Tax morale is interpreted as a social norm for tax compliance. The norm strength, depending on the share of evaders in the society, is endogenously derived. Taxpayers act conditionally cooperative,...

Using a suitably modified locational model of banking, we examine the influence of institutions, such as deposit contract enforcement, in explaining the share of government owned banks in the banking system. We present cross-country evidence suggesting that institutional factors are relatively...

The predictions of expected utility theory (EUT) applied to tax evasion are flawed on two counts: (i) They are quantitatively in error by huge orders of magnitude. (ii) Higher taxation is predicted to lower evasion, which is at variance with the evidence. An emerging literature in behavioral...