Although many workers have a private household as their workplace, many household employers are unaware of or fail to meet their state and federal payroll tax obligations, thus undermining the workers’ retirement income security. This dissertation uses sixty interviews with household employers and employees in the Washington, DC, area to investigate the causes and conditions of nanny tax evasion. Ethnographic fieldwork and semi-structured interviews indicate that lack of awareness, tax complexity, social norms of noncompliance, and poor personal ethics diminish payroll tax payment; concern over one’s job, personal ethics and altruistic concern for the employee motivate compliance. An analysis of limited IRS data on audits as well as data on Schedule H household employment payroll tax returns reveal that although some unpaid tax was discovered, almost as much tax paid in error was refunded, confirming the importance of complexity as a determinant of compliance. Analysis of results using Kohlberg’s stages of moral development and force field analysis of motives provides insight into employers’ decisions to pay or evade their nanny taxes. Policy recommendations emphasize increasing public awareness, tax simplification, and enforcement.

This dissertation develops theoretical and econometric models of investment and labor demand in South Africa in order to shed light on the decline in the rate of fixed investment beginning in the mid 1970s, the nature of business compliance with racebased labor market policies, and the emergence of “jobless growth” in a period of heightened political and social conflict. I develop a model of investment and choice of factor intensity that incorporates roles for both bargained wages and political unrest. Building from this theoretical base, the dissertation investigates the hypothesis that social conflict depresses investment. An index of political unrest in South Africa is created using data on strike activity, prison populations, and detentions under the apartheid security laws. Estimates using a panel data set show significant effects on investment of the after-tax rate of profits, an accelerator term, and the index of political unrest. Increases in political instability explain the largest portion of the decline in the rate of investment in South Africa over this period. The following chapter explores whether political unrest contributes to non-wage “hassle costs” of employing labor that can lead, in a labor surplus/capital-poor economy, to higher levels of capital-intensity. Econometric estimates show significant negative effects of higher average product wages and greater political unrest on the labor-capital ratio. The fifth chapter creates a model of business compliance with apartheid labor market policies—in particular, job reservations and controls over urban influx. Apartheid labor market policies are modeled as a multiple-player prisoner's dilemma in which the incentive to defect on the part of individual firms (by employing more low-wage black workers than apartheid policies allowed) threatens the collective benefits of the racist policies in providing a disciplined labor force at low cost. Renewable contractual relationships and conformist behavior provide the incentives to comply with the apartheid regulations. The model's predictions—that the level of non-compliance climbs as the ability of the state to police the cartel and maintain incentives falls—are shown to be reflected in the historical record.

The primary objective of this thesis is to assess the role of accounting in the economic development process of Iraq. The study highlights the crucial role of accounting information and techniques in the planning, decision-making, and control of economic activities at both micro and macro levels. A secondary objective is to affirm the importance of accounting and economic data in project appraisal and control. An attempt is made to reappraise two public agricultural projects which have already been evaluated by Iraqi planners and executed by two different foreign companies. The study also examines the projects' implementation and operating stages in an attempt to identify any failures in performance. The thesis can be divided into three parts: The first discusses the role of accounting in the economic development process. The second part gives a broad outline of accounting practice in Iraq and its impact on planning, control, and decision-making at both the micro and macro levels with particular reference to methods of project selection, appraisal, implementation, and control. The agricultural sector has been chosen for this purpose. The third part of the study is an empirical investigation of the appraisal, implementation, and control processes of two agricultural projects, aiming to show that accounting information and techniques have a vital role to play in project appraisal and control, and in linking the objectives of an investment project to those of national economic development.

Univ., Diss.--Bremen, 2007.

Zugl.: Oestrich-Winkel, Europ. Business School, Diss., 2008

Diss. Universität Passau, 2009. / Business and Economics (German Language) (Springer-11775) (GWV).

Diss. Universität Passau, 2009. / Business and Economics (German Language) (Springer-11775) (GWV).

Diss. HHL - Leipzig Graduate School of Management, 2009. / Business and Economics (German Language) (Springer-11775) (GWV).

Diss. HHL - Leipzig Graduate School of Management, 2009. / Business and Economics (German Language) (Springer-11775) (GWV).

Diss. European Business School, International University Schloss Reichartshausen, Oestrich-Winkel, 2008. / Business and Economics (German Language) (Springer-11775) (GWV).