In this paper we outline two suggestions for making existing democratic institutions in Hong Kong more effective. First, we suggest placing more responsibility for policy-making at the District Council level, so as to provide greater stakes in District Council elections. Second, we suggest...

This paper analyzes the financial condition of the Federal Civil Service Retirement System. It begins by examining various official annual reports about the system published by the Office of personnel Management, discussing their differing assumptions and resulting differences in estimates of...

Amnesties are widely used in society to rehabilitate past sinners, to collect resources, such as library books, that would otherwise be unrecoverable, and to make enforcement easier by reducing the ranks of delinquents. Over the past four years, tax amnesties have emerged as a major instrument...

"Bayesian-Ramsey pricing" has been offered to correct for the undue sensitivity of the Baumol and Bradford formulation of Ramsey pricing to relatively small errors in the highly uncertain least-squares estimates of the relevant demand elasticities. This paper provides a derivation of the Ramsey...

Hong Kong is in the midst of the most rapid political transition in China, and the success of this transition is crucial not only for the seven million residents of Hong Kong but also for the future of China itself. How the authorities in Beijing respond to democratic demands from Hong Kong, and...

The audit policy of a tax authority can signal its audit effectiveness. We model this process and show that in limited circumstances an ineffective authority can masquerade as being effective. We show that high maximal penalties imply underreporting of income.