The paper addresses a trademark infringer who seeks to capitalize on the reputation of a trademark owner, sells an identical product under a trademark which is confusingly similar to that of the owner, charges the same price and competes with him in the same market. We show that the...

A common belief is that the IRS pays tax informants 10% of whatever their tips produce in revenue. Actually, the bounty rate is even lower, averaging, in recent years, less than 2% of the amount of taxes and fines recovered. Why is it that the IRS is so tightfisted in rewarding informants who...

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental syndrome characterized by intrusive thoughts that trigger some repetitive action the individual feels driven to perform in order to relieve the anxiety engendered by the disturbing thoughts. A natural measure for the severity of OCD is the duration...

Ghosts are economic agents who evade taxes by failing to file a return. Knowing nothing about them, the tax agency is unable to track them down through audit strategies which are based on reported income. The present paper develops a simple model of the audit decision for a ghost-busting tax...