Self-Employment and Wage Earning in Hungary

This paper examines the earnings determinants of the self‐employed and wage earners in Hungary in the mid‐1990s, taking into account two forms of selection: selection into working or non‐working for every individual in its sample and selection into self‐employment or wage‐earning jobs for workers only. Previous studies use switching regression to examine the returns to individual characteristics, taking into account only selection into self‐employment or wage‐earning jobs. The authors find that the estimated returns to individual characteristics when accounting for both forms of selection, differ from estimates correcting for only selection into self‐employment or wage‐earning jobs. They also find that the earnings determinants of the two sectors are not significantly different from each other.     

Why Pay Taxes When No One Else Does?

In this paper we try to understand the phenomenon whereby a large proportion of the population evades tax payments. We present a model which incorporates elements from the theory of information cascades with the standard model of tax evasion and analyze the connection between the decision of a potential tax evader, the number of tax evaders, and the number caught in previous periods. General conditions exist under which any expected utility maximizing potential tax evaders will decide to emulate other tax evaders.     

Decomposing Revenue Effects of Tax Evasion and Tax Structure Changes

This paper proposes a method for evaluating the impact of tax structure changes on tax revenue. The technique consists of decomposing the gap between actual revenue and potential revenue into components attributable to changes in (i) the tax rate structure (ii) deductions and (iii) tax evasion. Our results indicate that, for the Indian reform episode we examine, there were initial gains which could not be sustained over time. The magnitude of the gains from the reform were limited and failed to significantly curtail losses from tax evasion.     

Dietary intake and the contribution of snacks among adolescents during the summer months

Abstract Adolescent diets are often cited as nutritionally inadequate, possibly because of their reported snacking habits. This study examined 48 adolescent diets using a 24-h diet recall and a 2-day food record during summer months. Total intake and snacks identified by the subjects were analysed for energy and nutrient content. Male and female subjects reported similar intakes of fat, cholesterol and sugar. Ninety-eight per cent of subjects reported at least one snack daily. Snacks contributed 25% to the total energy, vitamin C, calcium and magnesium intakes. Although these subjects were not adhering to national recommendations for fat and sugar, the snacks they consumed contributed positively to the nutrient content of adolescent diets.     

Possible ethical issues and their impact on the firm: Perceptions held by public accountants

The accounting profession is concerned with the ethical beliefs of its members. To this end, the authors surveyed public accountants, questioning them about the AICPA's Code of Professional Conduct and their perceptions of how potentially unethical behaviors impact the firm. The paper focuses on respondents' perceptions of the impact on the firm's practice, image and degree of concern.Public accountants appear to agree with the AICPA's Code of Professional Ethics. Their mean responses indicate they believe the Code components are important and extremely important. Some Code components were significantly more important than others, especially demonstrating professionalism and maintaining independence while performing independent audits. Gender, role and organizational level all had significant effects on the importance of the Code. Males, non-auditors and upper management all expressed stronger beliefs in the importance of the overall Code and its components.Significant differences exist in respondents' perceptions of how twelve potential ethical dilemmas impact the firm. Statistically significant differences were found in the way these behaviors harm the firm's business. Similarly, statistically significant differences exist in the degree that the firm's image is tarnished if its members engage in these behaviors and in the extent of the firm's concern about the implications of these behaviors.Not only do the various behaviors impact the firm differently, but the materiality of the behavior or the direction of the behavior result in significant differences in the extent the firm is impacted. Settling technical issues in the client's favor in response to client pressure, failing to correct known omissions and failing to correct known errors had greater impact on the firm when the technical issues, omissions and errors were material than when they were immaterial. Accountants perceived that giving unfair performance appraisals marred the firm's business more than receiving unfair performance appraisals did. Over reporting expenses on expense sheets had larger effects on the firm's business, image and level of concern. Over reporting hours had a stronger impact on the firm's image and level of concern, but under reporting hours had more of an impact on the firm's ability to transact business.Jeffrey Kantor is a Professor of Accounting at the University of Windsor.Ira Greenberg is the Director of The School of Accounting at the University of Detroit Mercy.Jeanne David is an Assistant Professor at the University of Detroit Mercy.     

On the persistence of business alliances: the case of Major League Baseball trading patterns

Informal relationships play an important role in the business world. Major League Baseball provides a unique business setting in which the personal relationships among the competing managements would appear to be critical. A contingency table analysis of all intraleague Major League trades between 1903 and 1959 shows, however, that economic efficiency and synergies offer the most cogent explanation for who has been trading or not with whom. The personal factor is more notable by its scarcity than by its surfeit.     

It’s all about audit quality: Perspectives on strategic-systems auditing

We discuss the antecedents of and rationale for what has become known as Strategic-Systems Auditing (SSA). We also describe the conceptual foundation and key elements of SSA. We observe that the auditor employing SSA conceives the audit as a process of evidence-driven, belief-based, risk assessment. We also illustrate facets of this process, including how the auditor, by acquiring a rich understanding of how and how well management is executing its business-model, develops rich (e.g., distributional) expectations of future financial-statement amounts and disclosures. These expectations form a benchmark against which the auditor later compares and investigates management’s asserted financial-statement amounts and disclosures. Finally, we pose and respond to some of the more common questions about elements of SSA and complete the paper by suggesting some educational innovations and high-value targets for research.One salient message is that SSA first emerged in the 1990s as an attempt to enhance audit quality in response to changes in the audit environment. Another salient message is that SSA continues to equilibrate, adapting to more recent environmental changes, especially society’s demand for greater protection from financial-statement fraud. Such adaptation requires ongoing, significant intellectual investments by audit practitioners and audit scholars/educators.     

A Longitudinal Analysis of Satisfaction with Group Work

Satisfaction with group work is an important and frequently studied phenomenon that often determines whether a new tool, technology, or method is successfully implemented in an organization. We report on a longitudinal study of small groups which used regression to model how satisfaction with the process, outcome, and group evolves over multiple sessions as a function of performance measures and prior satisfaction levels. The results indicated that current performance contributed less to satisfaction as the study proceeded and by the end of the study period satisfaction with the process and outcomes were determined almost exclusively by prior satisfaction levels. In general, the conclusions were dependent on the point in time at which the analysis was conducted and on the object of satisfaction under consideration. The results highlight the importance of longitudinal studies, rather than one-shot approaches, for understanding individual satisfaction with group work.