Regulatory enforcement with competitive endogenous audit mechanisms

This article adds to the regulatory compliance literature through the theoretical development and experimental testing of two endogenous audit mechanisms that use contemporaneous relative comparisons, based on disclosed information or imperfect signals of compliance effort, to generate a compliance competition among agents. This type of audit mechanism has some advantages over the more widely studied dynamic audit mechanisms that condition an agent's audit probability on past compliance, and provides an alternative explanation for the stylized fact, in many settings, that most agents are compliant most of the time even though audit rates and expected penalties are low.     

Irish trade unions under social partnership: a Faustian bargain?

Since 1987 trade unions have been a key party to social partnership agreements in Ireland. Theoretical and empirical studies of corporatism point to positive outcomes for trade unions such as an increase in union density, ease of recognition, and increased employer support. However, apart from a modest increase in union membership numbers, none of these outcomes were realised. Union density levels have decreased significantly, union recognition is more problematic than ever, and employer opposition appears to have increased in scope and intensity. Decline in union density questions the capacity of unions to remain pivotal actors in the future. During the period of partnership union density in the private sector more than halved. It remains the paradox of partnership.     

AN INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECT OF QUALIFIED AUDIT OPINIONS ON THE TRADING VOLUME AND BID-ASK SPREAD OF OVER-THE-COUNTER FIRMS

This paper investigates the information content of qualified audit opinions. The announcement of a qualified audit opinion is expected to cause investors' beliefs about the firm to converge. This increase in consensus would be evidenced by an unexpected decrease in trading volume surrounding the initial public announcement. Proportional bid-ask spread changes are used to test for changes in information asymmetry due to the announcement. After controlling for the effects of earnings announcements, a significant trading volume reaction is found in the week of the announcement for a sample of firms traded over the counter. No significant difference in proportional bid-ask spread is found. The results suggest that qualified audit opinions do, indeed, convey information to the investing public and this information results in homogeneous beliefs about the firm.     

CATHOLIC-PROTESTANT INCOME DIFFERENCES IN NORTHERN IRELAND

The purpose of this paper is to analyse income differences betweeen Catholic and Protestant families in Northern Ireland (NI) using Family Expenditure Survey micro-data. The paper's first conclusion is that there is much greater inequality within the Catholic and Protestant communities than there is between them. It's second conclusion, based upon econometric analysis of data for full-time employees, is that the lower mean income of Catholics, relative to Protestants, could be entirely explained in terms of different rates of reward attached to a given set of labour market characteristics.     

Business and Game-Playing: The False Analogy

A number of business writers have argued that business is a game and, like a game, possesses its own special rules for acting. While we do not normally tolerate deceit, bluffing is not merely acceptable but also expected within the game of poker. Similarly, lies of omission, overstatements, puffery and bluffs are morally acceptable within business because it, like a game, has a special ethic which permits these normally immoral practices. Although critics of this reasoning have used deontological and utilitarian arguments to show that deceit in business is just an immoral as it is in any other realm of human practice, little attention has been paid to the fact that the argument is one of analogy. The analogical argument for business' special ethic is only as strong as the alleged similarities between business and game-playing. This paper argues that this analogy is quite weak and incapable of either providing much insight into business or of offering a reason to think that the ethics of business are, or even could be, like those of a game.     

Tax morale affects tax compliance: Evidence from surveys and an artefactual field experiment

Our working hypothesis is that cross-cultural differences in tax compliance behavior have foundations in the institutions of tax administration and citizen assessment of the quality of governance. Tax compliance being a complex behavioral issue, its investigation requires use of a variety of methods and data sources. Results from artefactual field experiments conducted in countries with substantially different political histories and records of governance quality demonstrate that observed differences in tax compliance levels persist over alternative levels of enforcement. The experimental results are shown to be robust by replicating them for the same countries using survey response measures of tax compliance.     

Welfare Economic Aspects of Capital Punishment

Abstract . Much has been written in recent years concerning the issue of capital punishment. The major argument on the side of the retentionists appears to revolve around deterrence. Using postulates from modern welfare economics the authors demonstrate that the deterrence question is largely irrelevant. Attention is also given to extracting materials from the writings of earlier economists from Petty to Mill which may be helpful in resolving the issue. The conclusion which emerges is that capital punishment is not justifiable on economic grounds.     

The dimensions of leadership style

Few people ever appraise their personal qualities and behavior patterns. Nor do they stop to examine the challenges and requirements of the broad array of managerial possibilities open to them. This means that managers seldom match their ambitions and abilities. The discipline this paper offers toward recognizing your leadership profile is the important first step to intelligent career-planning.