Studying how firms and individuals respond to tax policy changes is key to assess their trade-off between equity and efficiency. Among individuals, taxpayers at the top of the income distribution have received special attention in the Public Economics literature. Progressive tax systems disproportionately rely on high income individuals to raise revenues, making them susceptible to strategies adopted by these taxpayers to reduce their tax liability. In the first two chapters of this dissertation, I provide new empirical evidence on the characteristics of high income individuals that can inform the design of tax policies. Chapter 1, focusing on the UK, shows that migrants have become more prevalent among high income individuals, thus altering the composition of individuals in the top 1 percent. Chapter 2, focusing on Italy, provides evidence of long term persistence in economic status among present-day descendants of noble dynasties. These chapters shed light on the characteristics of high income taxpayers and their path to the top of the distribution in these two countries. Understanding the composition of individuals at the top of the income distribution is key for analyzing their response to tax policies and for informing the trade-off between equity and efficiency. Firms too are a central part of the tax system of developed countries. They remit payment of the vast majority of government revenues, either fulfilling their own tax liabilities or on behalf of third parties. As a result, governments implement enforcement strategies to reduce evasion while minimizing their costs. In Chapter 3, I analyze one of these government interventions aimed at curbing tax evasion of Value Added Tax (VAT) in Italy and I provide evidence on a new margin of response adopted by businesses. As the government shifted the responsibility to remit VAT from the seller to the buyer for a subset of transactions in the economy, it altered the distribution of costs between the two sides of the transaction. I show that smaller firms face the largest increase in costs and, thus, exhibit higher exit rates, leading to higher market concentration. Chapter 1, which is joint work with Arun Advani, Felix Koenig, and Andy Summers, studies the contribution of migrants to the rise in UK top incomes.Using administrative data on the universe of UK taxpayers we show that migrants are over-represented at the top of the income distribution, with migrants twice as prevalent in the top 0.1 percent as anywhere in the bottom 97 percent. These high incomes are predominantly from labor, rather than capital, and migrants are concentrated in only a handful of industries, predominantly finance. Finally, we calculate the contribution of migrants and natives to the observed growth in the UK top 1 percent income share over the past 20 years. We find that almost all (92 percent) of the observed growth can be attributed to migration. Chapter 2 documents that present-day descendants of aristocratic dynasties enjoy high economic status in Italy, several decades or centuries after their ancestors received a title. Over this period of time, Italy experienced wars, annexations, political reforms, and a structural transformation of the economy. Yet, the income distribution of noble taxpayers living in Milan in 2005 is shifted to the right relative to the one of all other taxpayers. On average, noble descendants obtain 41,125 Euros (or 1.77 times) more, controlling for observables. Moreover, aristocrats are three times more likely to be involved in firms, either as shareholders or company officials. Chapter 3 analyzes how firms and markets adapt to a reform of the collection of Value Added Tax (VAT), combining a new administrative dataset on firm-to-firm links from Italy and a quasi-experimental research design. The reform shifted the responsibility to remit payments of VAT from sellers to “trusted" buyers, such as government entities and large firms. I present three main findings. First, firm-to-firm links subject to the new rules are more likely to become inactive after the introduction of the new rules. Second, I find that the reform was costly for the average firm. Firms more exposed to the reform experienced lower sales and higher exit rates, relative to the counterfactual. Third, I document that the burden of the reform was not evenly distributed across firms. Small firms were hit hardest, while large firms did not appear to be negatively affected. As a result, I show that markets more exposed to the reform became more concentrated.

in English: The topic of this Diploma Thesis is the Sychrov Castle Library, which belonged to the Rohan noble clan. The aim of this Thesis was to evaluate the proveniencial, thematic, linguistic and quantitative representation of individual titles. The introduction presents the aim of the work and its structure. The subsequent chapters focus briefly on the history of the Sychrov Castle and the history of the Rohans, mainly the Rohan-Guémené line, since the members of the clan who settled at the Sychrov Castle came from that line. Details are given about the representatives of the nobility clan who had substantial influence on the appearance and composition of the castle library. The fourth chapter is devoted to the Sychrov Castle Library itself and familiarises readers with catalogues, book quantities, document issue dates, information about the oldest and newest titles, the language composition of the library's collection and preserved exlibris, supralibros and ownership inscriptions. The most extensive chapter, the fifth one, focuses on the content characteristics of the Sychrov Castle Library's collection. The sixth chapter compares the library's collection with the library collections of two different nobility clans, the Beaufort-Spontin and the Mensdorff-Pouilly clans. The seventh chapter...

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[pt] Este trabalho pretende demonstrar a importância das letras compostas por Noel Rosa para a cultura carioca e brasileira. As letras destes sambas, recheadas de uma visão humorística, podem desvelar um pouco o universo social que nosso artista vivia e o que ele ainda tem a nos dizer nos dias de hoje. Para tanto, foi necessário estudar algumas letras compostas por Noel paradigma da cultura e sua interpretação, para uma maior compreensão da sociedade, discutindo a importância dos artistas e sua arte enquanto formuladores de cultura, além de abordá-los como mediadores culturais e também criadores de interesses sociais. Passamos a aventar a preponderância do samba enquanto um fenômeno histórico e social carioca e também brasileiro, e sua trajetória até chegar ao nosso compositor, tendo suas letras como nosso objeto de estudo. Assim revelando um pouco de sua biografia, demonstrando a sua importância para o mundo do samba e como sua visão social pode representar um olhar diferenciado sobre a sociedade. Classificamos este olhar diferenciado pela presença do discurso do humor, analisando de como se desenvolve a linguagem do riso e seu contraponto com a ordem vigente. Finalmente, destacamos alguns temas de caráter social pertinentes na obra noelina, concentrando a atenção em dois elementos, que aí se encontram inter-relacionados: a malandragem e o desejo difuso de ascensão à condição aristocrática. / [en] This work aims to demonstrate the importance of the lyrics composed by Noel Rosa for the carioca and Brazilian culture. The lyrics of those sambas, filled with a humoristic vision, can reveal a little of the social universe that our artist lived and what he nowadays has yet to tell us. Therefore, it was necessary to study the role of the culture and its interpretation, for a better comprehension of society, discussing the importance of artists and their art as formulators of culture, as well as to approach them as cultural mediators and also creators of social interests. We start to envisage the preponderance of samba as a historical and carioca and also Brazilian social phenomenon, and its trajectory until reaching our composer, having his lyrics as our objective of study: Noel Rosa, revealing a little of his biography, demonstrating his importance for the world of samba and how his social vision can represent a differentiated view upon society. We classified this view distinguished by the presence of humor discourse, we also make an analysis of how the laugh language is developed and its counterpoint with the established order. Finally, we highlight some social relations that are present in the Noel s work, focusing on two related behaviors: the rogue and the aristocratic willingness.

The attitudes of selected memoir authors are surveyed with regard to their commentary on London Society ranging from the late Nineteenth century to the Nineteen Thirties. The experience of these Society participants is divided between aspects of continuity and change before and after the First World War. During this time-frame, London Society, as the community of a ruling class culture, may be seen to have undergone the transition from having been an aristocratic entity dominated by the political and social prestige of the landed classes, to that of an expanded body, more reflective of democratic evolution and innovation. The memoir testimony treated in this inquiry affords a means of reflecting not only Society's passage of experience but also more pointedly, its evaluation, shedding light on the values and vulnerability of a hitherto assured, discreet and otherwise adaptive class character at a time of accelerated change and challenge.

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This dissertation discusses the complicated relationship (known as the comitatus) of kings and followers as presented in the heroic poetry of the Anglo-Saxons. The anonymous poets of the age celebrated the ideals of their culture but consistently portrayed the real behavior of the characters within their works. Other studies have examined the ideals of the comitatus in general terms while referring to the poetry as a body of work, or they have discussed them in particular terms while referring to one or two poems in detail. This study is both broader and deeper in scope than are the earlier works. In a number of poems I have identified the heroic ideals and examined the poetic treatment of those ideals. In order to establish the necessary background, Chapter I reviews the historical sources, such as Tacitus, Bede, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and the work of modern historians. Chapter II discusses such attributes of the king as wisdom, courage, and generosity. Chapter III examines the role of aristocratic women within the society. Chapter IV describes the proper behavior of followers, primarily their loyalty in return for treasures earlier bestowed. Chapter V discusses perversions and failures of the ideal. The dissertation concludes that, contrary to the view that Anglo-Saxon literature idealized the culture, the poets presented a reasonably realistic picture of their age. Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry celebrates ideals of behavior which, even when they can be attained, are not successful in the real world of political life.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-04T21:01:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 4 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Com este trabalho, procuramos demonstrar que a grande política é uma das tentativas de Nietzsche para superar o niilismo. Entretanto, além de não consegui-lo, sua proposta confronta-se com a democracia liberal da segunda metade do século XIX (o que contém certa dose de razão na medida em que detecta os traços niilistas passivos contidos nesse sistema político) e com a democracia de nossos dias, negando ao sujeito uma participação efetiva na política e seus rumos na sociedade, porquanto se assenta numa estrutura hierárquica de senhores e escravos, mesmo que com conotações espirituais, e não físicas, muitas vezes expressas de modo dúbio. Uma das conseqüências imediatas dessa proposição é o enraizamento da apatia política, traço inequívoco do niilismo passivo nas sociedades pós-modernas. Inspirada nos moldes gregos arcaicos e no radicalismo aristocrático, a sociedade aristocrática vislumbrada por Nietzsche seria conduzida pelo além-do-homem, ao longo da obra metaforizado como novo filósofo, filósofo legislador e / With this work we aim to demonstrate that great politics is one of the Nietzsche’s attempts to overcome nihilism. However, apart from didn’t make it, his proposal hatchs with liberal democracy of the second half XIX century (which have a certain reason element, because detect the passive nihilist traces contained in that political system) and with democracy of our time, denying to the individual one efective participation on politics and in society tacks, because it is based on a hierarchy structure of masters and slaves, even if with spiritual meaning, and not physical, many times expressed in a dubious way. One of the immediates consequences of that proposition its the rooting of political apathy, a unmisunderstantig trace of passive nihilism on postmodern societies. Inspired on greek arcaic casts, on the aristocratic radicalism, the aristocratic society glimpsed by Nietzsche has to be conducted by the beyond-man, along the nietzschian work metaphorized as new philosopher, legislator philosopher and aristoc

Le royaume de Judée va, entre la fin du IIème siècle av. J.-C. à l’an 70 ap. J.-C., connaître de profonds bouleversements. La société juive face aux puissances hellénistiques et romaine va réussir à conserver son identité tout en perdant son phare qu’est le Temple. La guerre contre Rome, à partir de 66 ap. J.-C,. révèle des tensions politiques, sociales et religieuses. Il n’y a pas un judaïsme mais des judaïsmes. L’aristocratie sacerdotale de plus arrogante va tenter de conserver son influence à tout prix. Une partie de la population va remettre en cause la structure de la société. Bien souvent ces révoltés, insurgés, tant méprisés par Flavius Josèphe, vont se battre pour défendre un idéal alliant une forme de patriotisme au judaïsme. / The realm of Judea went through profound changes between the end of the 2nd century B.C and theyear 70 A.D. Facing the Hellenistic and Roman powers, Jewish society was going to keep its identity while losing its lighthouse : the Temple.From 66 A.D., the war against Rome revealed political, social and religious tensions. There were different Judaisms, not only one. More and more arrogant, sacerdotal aristocracy tried to maintain its influence at any price.A part of the population challenged the structure of society. These rebels, so much criticized by Flavius Josephus, were often to fight to defend an ideal combining a form of patriotism to Judaism.