The Effect of Friendly Persuasion and Gender on Tax Comliance Behavior

Friendly persuasion, in contrast to deterrent measures like tax audits and penalties on underreported taxes, is a positive and possibly a cost effective method of increasing taxpayer compliance. However, prior studies have failed to show that friendly persuasion has a significant impact on compliance (Blumenthal et al., 2001; McGraw and Scholz, 1991). In our study, in contrast to prior studies, we examine the impact of generating and reading reasons supporting compliance as friendly persuasion on individuals' income reporting behavior as well as control for gender effects. Specifically, we predict an interaction effect between friendly persuasion and gender on compliance behavior. We carried out a 2 (friendly persuasion and control) × 2 (men and women) full factorial experiment, where participants earned $30 by completing two questionnaires. Participants in the friendly persuasion group were required first to generate and second to read a list of reasons why they should comply fully. Afterwards, participants in both groups were asked to report the income they earned and pay tax on the reported income. The results show a significant main effect for gender as well as a significant interaction effect between gender and friendly persuasion on income reported. Women in the friendly persuasion group reported significantly higher income compared to men in that group. Other comparisons were not significant. Policy implications for increasing taxpayers' ethics and compliance are highlighted.     

Effect of Order of Contribution in a Sequential Public Goods Dilemma

This study examined how order of contribution in a sequential public goods dilemma affected cooperation. Under a sequential protocol of play, players of different levels of efficacy made decisions one after another. We contrasted a High-to-low versus Low-to-high Efficacy order in a nine-person game. Under a High-to-low order, high-efficacy players made decisions in positions 1–3, medium-efficacy players in positions 4–6, and low-efficacy players in positions 7–9. Under a Low-to-high order, the positions of high- and low-efficacy players were reversed. We hypothesized that cooperation rates would be higher in the High-to-low order that high-efficacy players (assigned in early positions), who would likely cooperate, would induce subsequent players to cooperate also. We found the anticipated effect that cooperation rate was higher in the High-to-low than the Low-to-high efficacy order. The efficacy order effect was the most prominent when people perceived that their group was becoming uncooperative. This study illustrates a new type of structural solution to social dilemmas that by systematically assigning people to different sequential positions, a group can be made more or less cooperative.     

Effects of the matching fund program on IPO and bankruptcy of SMEs in Korea

Most small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Korea struggle in financing R&D. Thus, the Korea Core Industrial Technology Investment Association (KITIA) was established to implement a matching fund program (MFP) to help SMEs with this undertaking. Applicant firms to the MFP are reviewed first based on their technology levels and are required to attract financing from venture capitalists (VCs), before receiving funds from the MFP. This paper, based on KITIAs MFP applicant data from 2001 to 2004, evaluates the performance of the MFP in terms of the success rate of funded SMEs’ initial public offerings (IPOs) and bankruptcy rates in relation to those SMEs that could not attract matching funds. Propensity score matching was used to eliminate selection bias from the data in order to assess the actual treatment effect of the MFP. According to the result of logistic regression applied to the matched data, MFP apparently did not have significant effects on IPO success and bankruptcy. This implies that MFP needs to allow VCs more time to evaluate SMEs covering qualitative aspects as well. It is expected that this change of structure can provide better performance of MFP in terms of IPO success and bankruptcy of matched SMEs.     

Self-managers: Social contexts,personal traits,and organizational commitment

This study adopts self-determination theory to examine a path model that focuses on the effects of charismatic leadership and private self-consciousness on self-management, which in turn, leads to organizational commitment. We articulate that the relationships between self-management and each of charismatic leadership and private self-consciousness represent identified and integrated regulation, respectively. Thus, we test whether the relationship between self-management and private self-consciousness is stronger than that between self-management and charismatic leadership. The hypotheses are tested using data gathered from 981 employees. The result of the stronger path from private self-consciousness to self-management than the one from charismatic leadership is consistent with the literature on flow, organizational change, and followership. Moreover, our result of the mediating effects of self-management provides explanations for the little empirical research on follower processes in leadership effectiveness and on the association between private self-consciousness and organizational commitment.     

American option valuation under stochastic interest rates

By applying Ho, Stapleton and Subrahmanyam's (1997, hereafter HSS) generalised Geske–Johnson (1984, hereafter GJ) method, this paper provides analytic solutions for the valuation and hedging of American options in a stochastic interest rate economy. The proposed method simplifies HSS's three-dimensional solution to a one-dimensional solution. The simulations verify that the proposed method is more efficient and accurate than the HSS (1997) method. We illustrate how the price, the delta, and the rho of an American option vary between the stochastic and non-stochastic interest rate models. The magnitude of this effect depends on the moneyness of the option, interest rates, volatilities of the underlying asset price and the bond price, as well as the correlation between them. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Does the liquidity effect guarantee a positive term premium?

This paper examines the liquidity effect and the term structure in two versions of the limited participation model—an imperfect information model and an adjustment cost model. With a discrete-state solution approach, I find a striking contrast: while the imperfect information model successfully generates the liquidity effect and the positive term premium seen in the data; the adjustment cost model replicates only the liquidity effect. This is because the adjustment cost that drives the liquidity effect in the adjustment cost model also creates an adjustment cost effect, which leads to a negative term premium.     

On the Existence of Stable Roommate Matchings

This paper identifies a condition called “no odd rings” that is sufficient for the existence of stable roommate matchings in the weak preferences case. It shows that the process of allowing randomly chosen blocking pairs to match converges to a stable roommate matching with probability one as long as there are no odd rings. This random-paths-to-stability result generalizes that of Roth and Vande Vate (1990, Econometrica58, 1475–1480) and may not hold if there are odd rings. The “no odd rings” condition can also be used to prove a number of other sufficient conditions that are more economically interpretable. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C78, D71.     

Fairness of prices,user fee policy and willingness to pay among visitors to a national forest

Imposing user fees in Nature-Based Tourism (NBT) contexts has been a controversial issue. Based on the notions of justice and fairness, this study extended previous work examining the relationship between attitudes toward user fees and spending support. In a proposed structural model of price fairness, fee spending support, and willingness to pay (WTP), this paper identified the antecedents of WTP user fees, and empirically examined to what extent the data fit the model. Furthermore, the moderating role of place attachment in the model was investigated by using multiple-group structural equation modeling. Subjects (n = 562) were recreational tourists to a forest area in the southeast U.S. Results revealed that spending support partially played a mediating role in the relationship between perceived price fairness and WTP user fees. A multiple-group invariance test also demonstrated that while the degree of place identity moderated the effect of price fairness on spending support, the degree of place dependence did not influence the relationships among the antecedents of WTP.     

Foreign debt supply in an imperfect international capital market: Theory and evidence

We investigate the determinants of foreign borrowing costs in a stochastically growing economy. We find that these increase with the debt-wealth ratio, depending also upon the volatilities of domestic and foreign origin, and the length of debt contract. In addition, the sensitivity of the short-term debt supply to the debt-wealth ratio exceeds that of long-term debt, and the effects of volatility on the borrowing premium, growth of wealth, and its volatility, depend on the relative size of a direct effect and a secondary portfolio-adjustment effect of the initial shock, as well as the length of the debt contract. Panel regressions suggest that the empirical evidence generally support the theoretical predictions.