Laszlo Goerke

Tax Evasion and Competition

Using a Cournot oligopoly model with an endogenous number of firms and evasion of indirect taxes, this paper shows that more intense competition may have the negative side-effect of eroding tax revenues by increasing tax evasion. This will be the case if market entry costs decrease. A similar result will hold if marginal production costs fall and demand is either weakly concave or convex and inelastic. The desirable result of more competition, less evasion and higher tax revenues will be obtained if (a) marginal production costs fall and demand is convex and elastic or (b) the demand elasticity increases.

Norm-Based Trade Union Membership: Evidence for Germany

Abstract In the absence of closed shops and discriminatory wage policies, union membership can be explained by the existence of social norms.We describe a model, incorporating institutional features of the German labour market, which explicitly allows for social custom effects in the determination of union membership. Using panel data for Germany, we find evidence for according effects which restrict freeriding. The impact of social norms tends to increase with net union density. Hence, observed reductions in the demand for union membership can weaken the impact of a norm and accentuate the free-rider problem.

Fiscal Policy, Economic Integration and Unemployment

In this paper fiscal policy is examined for an open economy characterised by unemployment due to efficiency wages. We allow for capital and firm mobility in a model where the government chooses the level of wage, source-based capital and profit taxation. The taxing choices of governments are analyzed in scenarios which differ with respect to the constraints imposed on the set of available taxes and on the mobility of firms. As a general result, the welfare loss from labour market imperfections increases when tax bases become internationally mobile, which suggests an increasing relevance of domestic labour-market reforms when tax bases become global.

Risk Aversion and Trade Union Membership

In an open-shop model of trade union membership with heterogeneity in risk attitudes, a workers relative risk aversion can affect the decision to join a trade union. Furthermore, a shift in risk attitudes can alter collective bargaining outcomes. Using German panel data (GSOEP) and three novel direct measures of individual risk aversion, we find evidence of a significantly positive relationship between risk aversion and the likelihood of union membership. Additionally, we observe a negative correlation between bargained wages in aggregate and average risk preferences of union members. Our results suggest that an overall increase in risk aversion contributes to wage moderation and promotes employment.

Trade Union Membership and Sickness Absence: Evidence from a Sick Pay Reform

In 1996, statutory sick pay was reduced for private sector workers in Germany. Using the empirical observation that trade union members are dismissed less often than non-members, we construct a model to predict how absence behaviour will respond to the sick pay reform. We show that union members may have stronger incentives to be absent and to react to the cut in sick pay. In the empirical investigation, we find a positive relationship between trade union membership and absence due to sickness and observe more pronounced reactions to the cut in sick pay among union members than among non-members. These findings suggest that more flexibility in the use of paid absence due to sickness constitutes a private gain from trade union membership.

On the structure of unemployment benefits in shirking models

Abstract An increase in unemployment compensation is commonly argued to raise unemployment in a shirking model of efficiency wages. This prediction is based on the assumption of a uniform benefit level. However, 32+13if differential benefits for shirkers and non-shirkers exist, higher unemployment compensation for non-shirkers will reduce unemployment. In the long-run, this effect is amplified. Therefore, not only the level of benefits influences unemployment in an efficiency wage economy but also eligibility conditions, the effectiveness with which benefits are administered and, more generally, the institutional design of the unemployment insurance system.

Efficiency Wages and Taxes

Various taxes influence wage and employment outcomes in efficiency wage models. These findings are extended by incorporating more comprehensive tax functions and additional tax parameters. Moreover, the importance of different effort functions is evaluated. It is shown that higher marginal tax rates, holding the level of taxes constant, reduce wages and increase employment. Higher levels of taxes on income, labour costs and value-added tend to raise unemployment.

Voting on standardisation

This paper analyses equilibria of voting on commodity standards within the framework of a Farrell-Saloner model which takes into consideration the trade-off between network effects and losses from a reduction of variety. Social welfare implications are derived and discussed with respect to manipulations of majority rules. The findings indicate that welfare implications of standards are highly sensitive to the decision procedure and that the choice of the decision rule is non-trivial as it can at least prevent worst outcomes if not guarantee optimal results.

Tax Evasion and Tax Progressivity

In a pure tax evasion framework in which the monetary penalty is a function of the evaded tax, more progressive income taxes will reduce tax evasion if income has to be declared. However, if tax payments have to be declared, higher tax progressivity will have no effects. Thus, the relationship between tax evasion and tax progressivity depends on whether income or taxes have to be divulged to tax authorities. If the fine is a function of undeclared income, higher tax progressivity will always raise evasion.

Family employees and absenteeism

Work effort varies greatly across employees, as evidenced by substantial differences in absence rates. Moreover, absenteeism causes sizeable output losses. Using data from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), this paper investigates absence behavior of family employees, i.e. workers who are employed in enterprises owned by a relative. Our estimates indicate that being a family employee instead of a regular employee in the private sector significantly reduces both the probability and duration of absence to a substantial degree.