This dissertation shows how the transformation of social ownership to private ownership affected the behavior of firms and entrepreneurship in selected former Yugoslav countries. The goal was to determine whether firms’ objective remains the maximization of income per worker and, on the other...

The New Zealand Government proposed in August 2004 a ‘radically’ new approach to address evasion in industries which is perceived to be ingrained, namely targeted amnesties. With a general election and other ‘more pressing’ issues, the proposal has not been significantly advanced. This...

The paper investigates the role of the minimum wage in a competitive economy in which there is underreporting of earnings by employed labour. The minimum wage induces higher compliance by some low- productivity workers and transforms a nominally neutral fiscal system into a regressive one. A...

In pursuit of its transition from a command to a market economy, post-Soviet Russia has witnessed enormous regional differences in economic growth rates. Moreover, the economic reforms implemented under this transition, while initiated at the federal level, have also differed markedly across...

The first paper of this dissertation utilizes unique data on teachers' union election certifications in Iowa, Indiana, and Minnesota to analyze the effect of teachers' unions on education production. I find teachers' unions have no impact on teacher pay, class sizes, or per-student expenditures,...

During the ongoing post-communist economic transitions, the relative well-being of many people is changing rapidly, and governments are not well positioned to accurately measure individual living standards. Under such circumstances, continued price controls over basic consumer goods within the...

Tax evasion has been a huge problem in Russia. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union there has been a steady decline in the share of Gross Domestic Product collected in revenue by the State at all levels, although in the last couple of years the problem has improved somewhat. The standard view...

Most research on tax evasion has focused on the income tax. Sales tax evasion has been largely ignored and dismissed as immaterial. This paper explored the differences between income tax and sales tax evasion and demonstrated that sales tax enforcement is deserving of and requires the use of...

This paper analyzes the links between corporate tax avoidance, the growth of highpowered incentives for managers, and the structure of corporate governance. We develop and test a simple model that highlights the role of complementarities between tax sheltering and managerial diversion in...

The dissertation aims at broadening our understanding of tax evasion and government spending in developing countries. It comprises three essays. The first essay deals with estimation of tax evasion in a cross-section of developing countries by estimating their underground economies using the...