Which Elasticity? Estimating the Responsiveness of Taxpayer Reporting Decisions

In this paper we present estimates of the responses of individuals to marginal tax rates in their reporting of income, using data from individual tax returns for the year 1995. One estimation method is ordinary least squares regression. A second method uses quantile regression, which provides evidence on behavioral responses at different points (or quantiles) in the distribution of income and so is relevant to the question of whether the responses of, say, the rich differ from those at other points in the income distribution. Our results clearly indicate that marginal tax rates affect the reporting decisions of individuals. However, there are significant differences in the marginal tax rate reporting responses for the various types of reported income, there are major differences across income classes, and there are notable differences in the estimated responses across estimation methods.

Recursive utility with unbounded aggregators

A new framework is presented for the study of the existence and uniqueness of solutions to the Koopmans’ equation in the unbounded case, that is based on the contraction mapping approach. In the bounded below case with bounded consumption streams, uniqueness of the solution in the whole class of weak-star continuous utility functions is obtained. When the aggregator is unbounded below and/or consumption streams are unbounded, existence of a weak-star continuous solution is shown, and a simple criterium to check the sufficient conditions for existence is provided. Juan Pablo Rincón-Zapatero and Carlos Rodríguez-Palmero gratefully acknowledge financial support by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia and FEDER funds under Research Projects MTM2005-06534 and SEJ2005-08709/ECON, respectively, and by Consejería de Educación de la Junta de Castilla y León under Research Projects VA99/04 and VA017B05, respectively. This paper has substantially benefited from the comments of an anonymous referee. Particular and special thanks are due to Robert Becker for his very helpful comments and valuable suggestions.     

Gender differences in positive perceptions,anxiety, and depression among mothers and fathers of children with intellectual disabilities: a logistic regression analysis

This study explores gender differences in positive perceptions, anxiety, and depression among mothers and fathers of children with intellectual disabilities (IDs). We examined the relationship between these variables and certain characteristics of both the child (age and severity of disability) and the parents (age, educational level, and employment status). A sample of 60 mother/father couples who had children with IDs completed the Positive Contributions Scale to measure their positive perceptions, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale to assess their level of anxiety and depression. Bivariate analyses were used to determine differences between fathers and mothers as regards their positive perceptions and levels of anxiety and depression. A logistic regression model was then applied to identify which of the variables might be significant predictors of the gender differences observed among parents. Both mothers and fathers had positive perceptions of their children with IDs that co-existed with symptoms of anxiety and depression, with scores being higher among mothers. The predictive analysis of gender showed that individual variables (such as the employment status of both parents) may explain these differences.     

Estimating the Costs of Protecting Native Species from Invasive Animal Pests in New South Wales,Australia

Invasive animal pests reduce crop and livestock output, require management and control measures, and threaten native plants, animals and their habitat. The agricultural and management costs are often directly measurable. But the costs to protect threatened native plants and animals are harder to assess. The Rural Lands Protection Boards were the government agency in New South Wales that managed invasive animals. An analysis of their decisions provided the opportunity to estimate the costs of protecting native species. The number of native plants and animals threatened by invasive pests was modelled against the expenditure, area, pest abundance, climate and location of 38 Board districts. There was a strong negative relationship between the number of threatened native species and Board expenditure. This relationship was interpreted to estimate the marginal cost of protecting a threatened native species, the downward shift in the supply curve necessary to protect all threatened native species, and the gains from the shift in the form of cost savings in the continued protection of non-threatened native species. These results value some of the costs that invasive animal pests impose on the environment.     

Innovations,patent races and endogenous growth

This paper presents a model of innovations and endogenous economic growth with two main assumptions: first, the cost of searching for innovations differs across innovations, and second, innovations take time to find. The paper shows that given these two assumptions together, competition leads to patent races and to duplication of innovative activity. The paper then shows that duplication significantly reduces the effect of scale on growth. It also shows that competitive R&D creates too much research on easy innovations, and too little research on the difficult ones. Finally, the paper shows that risk sharing might increase duplication and reduce growth.     

The online laboratory: conducting experiments in a real labor market

Online labor markets have great potential as platforms for conducting experiments. They provide immediate access to a large and diverse subject pool, and allow researchers to control the experimental context. Online experiments, we show, can be just as valid—both internally and externally—as laboratory and field experiments, while often requiring far less money and time to design and conduct. To demonstrate their value, we use an online labor market to replicate three classic experiments. The first finds quantitative agreement between levels of cooperation in a prisoner’s dilemma played online and in the physical laboratory. The second shows—consistent with behavior in the traditional laboratory—that online subjects respond to priming by altering their choices. The third demonstrates that when an identical decision is framed differently, individuals reverse their choice, thus replicating a famed Tversky-Kahneman result. Then we conduct a field experiment showing that workers have upward-sloping labor supply curves. Finally, we analyze the challenges to online experiments, proposing methods to cope with the unique threats to validity in an online setting, and examining the conceptual issues surrounding the external validity of online results. We conclude by presenting our views on the potential role that online experiments can play within the social sciences, and then recommend software development priorities and best practices.     

Dictator games: a meta study

Over the last 25 years, more than a hundred dictator game experiments have been published. This meta study summarises the evidence. Exploiting the fact that most experiments had to fix parameters they did not intend to test, in multiple regression the meta study is able to assess the effect of single manipulations, controlling for a host of alternative explanatory factors. The resulting rich dataset also provides a testbed for comparing alternative specifications of the statistical model for analysing dictator game data. It shows how Tobit models (assuming that dictators would even want to take money) and hurdle models (assuming that the decision to give a positive amount is separate from the choice of amount, conditional on giving) provide additional insights.