Considerable evidence suggests that enforcement efforts cannot fully explain the high degree of tax compliance. To resolve this puzzle of tax compliance several researchers have argued that citizens’ attitudes toward paying taxes defined as tax morale helps to explain the high degree of...

In order to guarantee a further successful functioning of the enlarged European Union a Federal European Constitution is proposed. Six basic elements of a future European federal constitution are developed: the European commission should be turned into an European government and the European...

type="main" xml:id="obes12024-abs-0001" <title type="main">Abstract</title> <p>In this article we study the social norms to abstain from cheating on the state via benefit fraud and tax evasion. We interpret these norms (called benefit morale and tax morale) as moral goods, and derive testable hypotheses on whether their...</p>

Does the supply of a welfare state create its own demand? Many economic scholars studying welfare arrangements refer to Say's law and insinuate a self-destructive welfare state. However, little is known about the empirical validity of these assumptions and hypotheses. We study the dynamic effect...

Enste and Wicher suggest that political regulation is always wealth-reducing. However, their analysis neglects various relevant determinants of the wealth indicator. Economic wealth cannot be estimated from the quantity of regulation, as quality and other aspects matter. Hence, political acumen...

The present study examines the criteria used by economic laypeople (N = 380 German citizens) and economists (N = 80 professors or postgraduates in economics) in judging reform measures as illustrated by policies of governmental labor market intervention policies. Results reveal...

This paper presents estimates of the size of the shadow economy in 76 developing, transition, and OECD countries, which are derived by combining figures from different estimation methods. We describe and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the different estimation methods. We find that the...