(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011-11-11)
Leonardo, Gabriel
Traditional models of tax evasion cannot explain why most people comply with their taxes. It has been proposed that taxpayers may have an intrinsic motivation (or willingness) to comply with taxes - Tax Morale. Empirical studies found that trusting government, upholding religious beliefs, and supporting democratic regimes, increase individual Tax Morale. Based on those results and drawing from related literature in Political Science, this study tests the role of trusting government institutions delivering public goods to taxpayers, ideological beliefs, individual support for political regimes, and upholding post-materialist values, on Tax Morale. Results for individuals living in democratic countries show a positive relationship between trust in government institutions and upholding democratic values on Tax Morale; a negative relationship between upholding ideological (conservative) beliefs and Tax Morale, and no relationship between upholding post-materialist values and Tax Morale. Results for individuals living under non-democratic regimes differ in some respects; whereas support for democracy is related with higher Tax Morale, other results - trust in government and ideological beliefs - differ from theoretical expectations. Overall, higher trust in government increases willingness to comply with taxes, and support for democracy elicits higher Tax Morale.
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010-05-18)
Gomez Reino, Juan Luis
This dissertation contributes to the definition of an analytical framework for the study of optimal jurisdictional size for local service delivery. We argue that the standard economics framework for the analysis of optimal jurisdictional size importantly neglects individual preferences for political accountability. Our theoretical model shows that once we take into account such preferences, the optimal jurisdictional size for the provision of local public goods is smaller than in the standard model. We obtain empirical evidence to support our hypothesis from a sample of 197 countries. Our results show that, in fact, demand for political accountability leads to higher jurisdictional fragmentation both in terms of greater number of jurisdictions and smaller average population per jurisdiction. In addition, a meta-analysis of the empirical contributions to the study of economies of scale in the provision of local services shows that the economies of scale expected from service provision to larger jurisdictional sizes may not be present except for a handful of local services, and limited to relatively small population sizes. The results of the meta-analysis signal moderately increasing to constant returns to scale in the provision of traditional local services. In light of these results, we argue that forced jurisdictional consolidation programs across the world justified by perceptions of excessive jurisdictional fragmentation, or by the expectation of large expenditure savings due to economies of scale may have been, thus, erroneously designed. From a policy perspective, multi-layered institutional frameworks for service delivery (including cooperation and privatization among other options) may allow targeting available efficiency gains more efficiently than consolidation.