Cheating in Europe: underreporting of self-employment income in comparative perspective

Various national studies have used the expenditure method (Pissarides and Weber in J Public Econ 39(1):17–32, 1989) to estimate income underreporting by the self-employed relative to the wage earners. Within Europe, the studies mostly consider the UK or individual Nordic countries, while no data are available for most Southern European and Eastern European countries. This paper is the first to apply the expenditure method to a large number of EU countries using harmonised microdata and a common model specification to enhance cross-country comparability. We extend the number of countries studied using the expenditure method and contribute to the scarce comparative literature on tax non-compliance in general. Our estimates show substantial variation in income underreporting across countries, from under 10% to more than 40% of self-employed household income on average. The shares of underreporting do not appear to be related to the development level of the countries

Demographic versus expenditure flexibility in Engel curves

Preference heterogeneity, Rank test, Demand systems, D1,

Estimation of outbound Italian tourism demand: a monthly dynamic EC-LAIDS model

An almost ideal demand system with monthly frequency, in both long-run and dynamic forms, is used to quantify the responsiveness of Italian tourism demand to changes in relative prices, exchange rates, expenditure and unexpected one-off events in four main European destinations. Short-term elasticities, which are crucial for policies regarding own price, as well as cross prices and expenditure elasticities are derived from the dynamic model. It is also found that the dynamic model outperforms the long-run model in forecasting accuracy. This paper provides useful information for policymakers to maintain high market shares of Italian tourism demand

Properties of Equivalence Scales in Different Countries

household economies of scale, equivalence scales, survey method, independence of base, C42, C90, D31, D63, I31,

Estimating the income reporting function for the self-employed

Income under-reporting, Nonparametric estimation, Engel curve, C14, D12, O17,