Currency,Marginal Tax Rates,and the Underground Economy

This paper has attempted to isolate that portion of the underground economy which is both measurable and controllable. The standard variables postulated by Cagan, income and interest rates, are still important, although the value of the income elasticity of currency demand may be larger than expected. Marginal tax rates have a positive and significant influence on currency holdings, which supports Tanzi's work and contradicts the findings of the Internal Revenue Service. While not all the increase in currency holdings in the last 20 years can be explained by using tax rates, somewhere between $11 and $12 billion worth of currency can be attributed to that source. While unemployment compensation ought to affect the size of the underground economy, no statistical verification can be found through the specification contained here. Finally, it is noted that the trend toward less currency holding, which one would expect from the recent banking innovations, would have occurred had not other forces offset it.One of the forces which has probably led to an increase in currency holdings is increased drug-related activity. However, that portion of the underground economy which exists because of crime has been largely ignored here because little of it can be controlled by economic policy. What is explored here is a measurement of how much underground activity we could dissuade by lowering taxes, and further, how those lower taxes would influence tax collections. The effects appear to be large enough to warrant concern about the impact of tax rates on incentives.     

Cooperation and conflict between industrial sales and production

This study examines the potential for cooperation between the sales and production functions in the composite can and tube industry. The interfunctional communications perceptions, role-partner choices, and personal value attributions of incumbents in four key positions are examined. While perceptions, choices, and attributions are found to interact differently in different positions, the overall effect suggests a greater potential for conflict and dominance than for cooperation.     

Effects of short-sale restrictions

A recently developed simplified portfolio construction scheme is used here to compare empirically the characteristics of optimal equity holdings with and without restrictions on the sale of borrowed securities. Among other results, unrestricted portfolios are found to have less overall risk, and more return per unit of portfolio risk, than positions restricted to long-only holdings.     

Theories of the state and the state of accounting: Economic reductionism and political voluntarism in accounting regulation theory

It has recently been suggested that the inability of the economics-finance literature to say anything definitive about the appropriate form of accounting regulation highlights the need to augment neoclassical economic analysis with sociopolitical considerations. It is argued in this paper that patching up the orthodox theory would be futile; that the flaws are so fundamental as to warrant abandoning neoclassical state theory and embarking on a serious debate about radical theoretical alternatives. Economic reductionism and political voluntarism are shown to be the main flaws in the neoclassical theory, and these deficiencies are primarily responsible for the present theoretical disarray. After a brief overview of radical theories of the state, this paper suggests that replacing—not refurbishing—neoclassical state theory is the most plausible strategy for accounting researchers.     

How valid is the buy-grid model?

The purpose of this paper was to test the effects of product type and purchase experience on industrial buyer behavior. The research was conducted in the commercial construction industry. The findings indicate that product type is a meaningful variable which is related to industrial buyer behavior; however, the purchase experience variable or buyclass variable is not significantly related to buyer behavior as measured in this study.     

Information processing analysis of a stochastic model of brand choice

A formal and detailed comparison between Morrison's brand loyal model and its information processing counterpart reveals serious internal inconsistencies and other shortcomings of this stochastic model.