When Do We Think About Detection? Structural Opportunity and Taxpaying Behavior

1989 ◽  
Vol 14 (03) ◽  
pp. 481-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loretta J. Stalans ◽  
Kent W. Smith ◽  
Karyl A. Kinsey

Past studies have generally found that perceptions of the likelihood of formal and informal sanctions have lower explanatory power of noncompliance with laws than do internalized norms. Using data from two telephone surveys, we examined a situational characteristic, structural opportunity, that may prod individuals to think about the likelihood of detection from the Internal Revenue Service for underreporting income. Structural opportunity is the degree to which an individual's economic or social situation provides ways to avoid detection. Individuals with high structural opportunity perceived a lower likelihood of IRS detection and indicated that they were less likely to feel guilty if they engaged in tax cheating. Our data also suggested that some individuals with high structural opportunity may be in social networks which condone tax cheating. As expected, structural opportunity provided a condition under which individuals took into consideration the perceived likelihood of formal and informal detection in formulating intentions to engage in tax cheating. Our findings suggest that an examination of the interaction between situational and individual characteristics will provide a more complete understanding of decisions to engage in illegal behavior. Implications for deterrence theory are discussed.

1984 ◽  
Vol 23 (01) ◽  
pp. 15-22
Author(s):  
Y. Sekita ◽  
T. Ohta ◽  
M. Inoue ◽  
H. Takeda

SummaryJudgements of examinees’ health status by doctors and by the examinees themselves are compared applying multiple discriminant analysis. The doctors’ judgements of the examinees’ health status are studied comparatively using laboratory data and the examinees’ subjective symptom data.This data was obtained in an Automated Multiphasic Health Testing System. We discuss the health conditions which are significant for the judgement of doctors about the examinees. The results show that the explanatory power, when using subjective symptom data, is fair in the case of the doctors’ judgement. We found common variables, such as nervousness, lack of perseverance etc., which form the first canonical axis.


Author(s):  
Shaun Bowler

This chapter analyzes to what extent variation in political institutions affects political support. The chapter observes that the existing research is not always clear on which institutions should produce what kind of effect, although a general expectation is that institutional arrangements improve political support when they give citizens an increased sense of connection to the political process. In general then, we should expect institutions that strengthen the quality of representation to strengthen political support. This general expectation is specified in six hypotheses that are tested using data from the ESS 2012. The chapter demonstrates that electoral systems that provide voters with more choice about candidates, multiparty governments, and “responsive” legislatures, correlate positively with political support. However, compared to other macro-level factors and individual characteristics, the effects of political institutions on political support are modest. The chapter concludes that the prospects for institutional reform to strengthen political support are limited.


Author(s):  
Keisuke Kokubun ◽  
Yoshinori Yamakawa

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues to spread globally. While social distancing has attracted attention as a measure to prevent the spread of infection, some occupations find it difficult to implement. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the relationship between work characteristics and social distancing using data available on O*NET, an occupational information site. A total of eight factors were extracted by performing an exploratory factor analysis: work conditions, supervisory work, information processing, response to aggression, specialization, autonomy, interaction outside the organization, and interdependence. A multiple regression analysis showed that interdependence, response to aggression, and interaction outside the organization, which are categorized as ”social characteristics,” and information processing and specialization, which are categorized as “knowledge characteristics,” were associated with physical proximity. Furthermore, we added customer, which represents contact with the customer, and remote working, which represents a small amount of outdoor activity, to our multiple regression model, and confirmed that they increased the explanatory power of the model. This suggests that those who work under interdependence, face aggression, and engage in outside activities, and/or have frequent contact with customers, little interaction outside the organization, and little information processing will have the most difficulty in maintaining social distancing.


Author(s):  
Josefine Atzendorf ◽  
Stefan Gruber

AbstractEpidemic control measures that aim to introduce social distancing help to decelerate the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, their consequences in terms of mental well-being might be negative, especially for older adults. While existing studies mainly focus on the time during the first lockdown, we look at the weeks afterward in order to measure the medium-term consequences of the first wave of the pandemic. Using data from the SHARE Corona Survey, we include retired respondents aged 60 and above from 25 European countries plus Israel. Combining SHARE data with macro-data from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker allows us to include macro-indicators at the country level, namely the number of deaths per 100,000 and the number of days with stringent epidemic control measures, in addition to individual characteristics. The findings show that both macro-indicators are influential for increased feelings of sadness/depression, but that individual factors are crucial for explaining increased feelings of loneliness in the time after the first lockdown. Models with interaction terms reveal that the included macro-indicators have negative well-being consequences, particularly for the oldest survey participants. Additionally, the results reveal that especially those living alone had a higher risk for increased loneliness in the time after the first COVID-19 wave.


2012 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 457-487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Regina Madalozzo ◽  
Carolina Flores Gomes

Consensual union, also known as cohabitation, has become more frequent in recent decades in Brazil and many other countries. In this context, some studies have analyzed the impact of marriage on women's wages. This article analyzes the effects of marital status on Brazilian women's wages by specifically investigating the individual characteristics of these effects using data from the 2000 Brazilian Census Database. This study concludes that wages differ by up to 15 per cent between married and single women and up to 3 per cent between married and cohabiting women.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 4839 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michał Dudek ◽  
Wioletta Wrzaszcz

The aim of the study was to provide the examples of eco-innovations in agriculture relating to the concept of sustainable development and the indication of their conditions. Quantitative and qualitative methods were applied to the research, namely: descriptive statistical and economic analysis of the Polish Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) data and Statistics Poland data, as well as case studies of organic food producers, covering the years 2005–2019. Indicated information sources, encompassing long time span of analysis and various data collections, allowed presenting the complementary picture of eco-innovations at the sector and farm levels. The research examined the different types of ecological innovations in Polish agriculture, including: (1) organisational innovations with an institutional background (e.g., the organic farming support and greening mechanism of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)—implemented in the family farming sector); and (2) the product, marketing, process and organisational innovations in selected organic farms that were individual farmers’ initiatives. On the one hand, the research documented the effectiveness of new agricultural policy solutions in the agricultural sector that are examples of organisational eco-innovations. During 2005–2016, the certification system, as well as policy support, contributed to the development of organic farms in Poland in terms of the growth in the share of this type of holdings in total (from 0.5% to 4.6%) and in the overall utilised agricultural area (UAA) (from 0.3% to 3.7%). Moreover, during 2014–2015, as a result of the greening in agricultural holdings, the area sown with pulses and papilionaceous, i.e., crops improving soil structure and protecting soils, rose by 174% and 161%, respectively. On the other hand, the case studies conducted showed that the food producers’ knowledge and skills combined with a favourable local economic and social situation, as well as institutional support, played a key role in the process of the emergence of eco-innovations. Among those factors, the respondents’ individual characteristics associated with attitudes towards farming and the social, human and physical capital passed on by family members should be highlighted. This paper contributes to existing literature in two ways. First, this study combines both quantitative and qualitative (including in-depth interviews) approaches to eco-innovations at the micro and macro level of analysis. Second, by differentiating two approaches to ecological innovations, namely the conventional and the sustainable, the article indicates and considers the key factors favourable to the latter.


2020 ◽  
Vol 240 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 161-200
Author(s):  
Matthias Dütsch ◽  
Ralf Himmelreicher

AbstractIn this article we examine the correlation between characteristics of individuals, companies, and industries involved in low-wage labour in Germany and the risks workers face of earning hourly wages that are below the minimum-wage or low-wage thresholds. To identify these characteristics, we use the Structure of Earnings Survey (SES) 2014. The SES is a mandatory survey of companies which provides information on wages and working hours from about 1 million jobs and nearly 70,000 companies from all industries. This data allows us to present the first systematic analysis of the interaction of individual-, company-, and industry-level factors on minimum- and low-wage working in Germany. Using a descriptive analysis, we first give an overview of typical low-paying jobs, companies, and industries. Second, we use random intercept-only models to estimate the explanatory power of the individual, company, and industry levels. One main finding is that the influence of individual characteristics on wage levels is often overstated: Less than 25 % of the differences in the employment situation regarding being employed in minimum-wage or low-wage jobs can be attributed to the individual level. Third, we performed logistic and linear regression estimations to assess the risks of having a minimum- or low-wage job and the distance between a worker’s actual earnings and the minimum- or low-wage thresholds. Our findings allow us to conclude that several determinants related to individuals appear to suggest a high low-wage incidence, but in fact lose their explanatory power once controls are added for factors relating to the companies or industries that employ these individuals.


2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-123
Author(s):  
Ognjen Obućina ◽  
Jan Saarela

The aim of this study is to analyse the factors determining the ethnic affiliation of children born to interethnic native couples in Finland, using data from couples with one Finnish-speaking and one Swedish-speaking partner, between 1988 and 2014. In addition to individual characteristics of each partner and contextual factors, we also consider the role of couple characteristics. We look at the affiliation of the first child, as well as the combined affiliation of the first two children, in order to analyse how often children from the same parents are affiliated to different ethnicities. Around 60% of first- and second-born children of interethnic couples born between 1988 and 2014 were affiliated to the Swedish-speaking minority. The affiliation of the second child seldom differs from that of the first. Children of mixed couples with a Swedish mother are more likely to be affiliated to the Swedish-speaking community. Boys are more likely than girls to be affiliated to the father’s community, and vice versa. In line with our expectations based on ethnic awareness, preference for cultural plurality and parental aspirations, the multivariate analysis shows a strong positive association between parental education level and the likelihood of the first child being Swedish speaking. The analysis also indicates that bargaining is not an important strategy when choosing a child’s ethnic identity.


SAGE Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 215824402096360
Author(s):  
Linda M. Fogg ◽  
Lawrence C. Hamilton ◽  
Erin S. Bell

Transportation infrastructure such as highways and bridges requires upgrades and maintenance. In many U.S. regions, these requirements have surpassed current funding, so new solutions are needed. One obvious though imperfect source is gasoline taxes, but raising these is politically risky, regardless of need. To illuminate this conflict, we analyze data from four random-sample telephone surveys (2016–2018, n = 2,035) that asked residents in the U.S. state of New Hampshire about their perceptions of highway and bridge conditions, and support for gas tax increases. About one third of the respondents counterfactually reported that highway and bridge conditions had improved compared with 10 or 20 years ago. At the county level, subjective perceptions correlate well with actual pavement and bridge conditions. Majorities of respondents also said they would support tax increases of 5 of 10 cents, although support falls off at higher amounts. Support for a tax increase varies not only with the proposed amount, but also with individual characteristics—especially political identity. In a structural equation model, infrastructure perceptions serve as an intervening variable between ideology and tax support: if infrastructure is falsely seen as improving, that supports an ideologically favored rejection of taxes. Partisan differences in perceptions of physical conditions, noted previously in other domains such as climate change, pose an unexpected challenge in building public support for transportation infrastructure.


2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 284-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sukkyung You ◽  
Ann Y. Kim ◽  
Sun Ah Lim

This study applied multilevel modeling to examine how individual characteristics, such as gender and teaching experience, and contextual characteristics, such as principal leadership and perceived colleague support, influenced Korean secondary school teachers’ sense of job satisfaction. Previous research identified teachers with high job satisfaction to have positive influences on their students, making it important to understand teacher job satisfaction not only for teachers but also for students. Using data from a nationally representative sample of 2908 teachers from 150 middle schools, the results indicated that (1) among teachers’ individual characteristics, teacher efficacy had significant effects on teacher job satisfaction, and (2) among institutional, school-level characteristics, perceptions of academic climate, support from colleagues, and supportive principal leadership had significant impacts on teacher job satisfaction. The findings of this study provide reason for individual teachers to reflect on their sense of efficacy and the influence it can have on their professional practice. The study also suggests ways to create better education policies on the basis of its empirical data.


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