Shifting Strategies: the Pursuit of Closure and the ‘Association of German Auditors’

Drawing on Weber’s [(1972). Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie [Economy and society. An outline of interpretive sociology]. (5th ed.). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck] theories of social stratification and closure, and on Parkin’s [(1979). Marxism and class theory. London: Tavistock] development thereof, this paper contributes a case study of Germany to the literature on closure processes (rather than outcomes), and outcomes falling short of professionalization. It explores the early history of the first German association of auditors, the Verband Deutscher Bücherrevisoren (VDB), founded in 1896. The paper traces how closure was pursued, at various times, by different means and to different degrees, depending on the changing social, economic and political contexts and on changing perception of what would best serve the association’s interest. By thus focusing on the shifting aims and strategies of the VDB, the paper contributes new insights into the dynamics within professions and between professions and their environments, and the dynamics and conditions underlying failed professionalization projects. The paper shows that, while the VDB had a degree of success in creating many of the structure and processes of a modern professional body, its ambition to achieve market and professional closure was not fulfilled.     

Attention Platforms,the Value of Content,and Public Policy

This paper shows that two related aspects of attention platforms are important for the sound economic analysis of public policy including antitrust: first, attention platforms generate valuable content. Even though people often don’t pay for content, we know from revealed preference that content is valuable because people spend a considerable amount of time—which has an opportunity cost—consuming it. Second, demand for advertising and the supply of content are interdependent. A decrease in the demand for advertising reduces the returns to supplying content and therefore the amount of content that is provided. Accounting for the value of content and these positive feedbacks cannot determine optimal interventions; but failing to do so can result in policies that reduce consumer—as well as advertiser—welfare. The paper then considers the implications of these considerations for public policy: particularly privacy regulation and antitrust enforcement. From the standpoint of promoting consumer welfare, the failure to account for the value of content and the ad-content interdependencies increases the chances that authorities do not intervene when they should and do intervene when they should not.

     

Tax Non-Compliance and Perceptions of Corruption: Policy Implications for Developing Countries

Tax non-compliance and perceptions of corruption are key challenges to state-building in developing countries. Using a social psychology approach, we develop a theoretical model in which different forms of perceived corruption can adversely influence the way individual taxpayers behave. We then apply this model to Indonesia, placing our empirical findings in the context of compliance risk management, identifying strategies to improve tax compliance, and exploring how to implement these strategies effectively. We shed light on the applicability of the traditional responsive regulatory approach (used by revenue authorities to deal with intentionally non-compliant taxpayers), which combines measures in attempting to achieve either voluntary or enforced compliance. While the empirical evidence is based on the Indonesian experience, we suggest that our model is sufficiently general and robust to be applicable to other developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region.     

Social Capital and the Shadow Economy

Viewed in a wider context of paid and unpaid informal economic activities, the shadow economy highlights the little recognized ambivalence of social capital as both potentially positive and negative in outcomes for different groups in the economy. Using a concept of social capital as access to durable networks of actual and virtual resources, as claimed by Pierre Bourdieu, I examine the shadow economy as a source of both resilience and repression, intimately connected to the formal economy and tied to a neo-liberal agenda. I draw from review activities I have previously conducted on the informal economy in disadvantaged neighborhoods and from research on social capital in the economy in a European context.     

Going Native: Effects of Disclosure Position and Language on the Recognition and Evaluation of Online Native Advertising

Despite recent industry attention, questions remain about how native advertising is perceived and processed by consumers. Two experiments examined effects of language and positioning in native advertising disclosures on recognition of the content as advertising, effects of recognition on brand and publisher evaluations, and whether disclosure position affects visual attention. Findings show that middle or bottom positioning and wording using “advertising” or “sponsored” increased advertising recognition compared to other conditions, and ad recognition generally led to more negative evaluations. Visual attention mediated the relationship between disclosure position and advertising recognition. Theoretical, practical, and regulatory implications for disclosures in native advertising are discussed.     

From ‘just a swimmer’ to a ‘swimming mother’: women’s embodied experiences of recreational aquatic activity with pre-school children

Increased academic attention on the gendering of leisure pastimes in recent years has highlighted the centrality of the gendered body in influencing how leisure is accessed, experienced and transformed. To date, however, little attention has been paid to how women experience aquatic leisure activity, the second most popular form of leisure activity in the UK, and where female participation predominates. This paper presents results from research investigating the aquatic leisure experiences of 22 women, with children aged under 3, in the North-East of England. A number of key themes emerged from the data, which highlighted the centrality of the gendered, lived body as a key social construct contouring participant perceptions in the swimming pool environment. Women reflected upon their self-perceived physical deficiencies when wearing revealing swimming costumes, particularly under the critical gaze of ‘other’ bodies, whether present or imagined. The co-presence of other bodies was also central in shaping lived experiences, and the presence of ‘dependent’ children’s bodies shifted bodily intentionality away from the self towards perceived maternal responsibilities and the management of perceived risks, including ‘dirt’ and ‘germs’ and the negotiation of the tacit rules of the swimming pool. Results also suggest that the emphasis on maternal responsibility in aquatic leisure activity and timing of parent-toddler sessions could lead to reproduction of gender inequalities and the exclusion of some fathers from participation.     

Towards the Development of a Tax System Complexity Index

Reducing tax system complexity is a common goal amongst policymakers; yet there is no commonly agreed definition of complexity. This paper seeks to fill this gap, by proposing the construction of an index of tax system complexity, conceived as a summary indicator of the overall complexity of a tax system at a particular point in time. If adopted, such an index would not only enable assessment of the changing level of a country's tax system complexity over time, but may also facilitate comparisons of the relative complexity of different countries' tax systems in future.