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The purpose of this paper is to point out that tax fraud, recognized as a scourge by both governments and responsible tax-payers, hits public finances hard with an inevitable knock-on effect on general welfare. Based on this observation, key players interviewed for this paper, including magistrates, a trade unionist and a high-ranking official, will attempt to provide some possible solutions to help understand why significant sections of public opinion consider this very particular form of financial crime to be legitimate, largely inspired by the notion that tax fraud and evasion are socially acceptable and even seen as a national sport in certain countries.

The survey was carried out among 20 tax officials, a trade unionist, two magistrates and a high-ranking civil servant. The interviewees were carefully chosen for their ability to provide valuable insights into the reasons behind the lenient treatment of fraudsters by a state lacking the necessary means and structures to fight this crime.

The fight against tax fraud has clearly sparked numerous controversies around evaluation, scope, criminal perpetrators and cooperation between services.

Tax fraud, an offence committed with the aim of avoiding taxation or reducing the amount of tax to be paid, ranges from low-level illegal activity, such as undeclared work to make ends meet, to more serious offences, such as value-added tax carousel fraud. All the unpaid tax resulting from such blatant flouting of the law represent a serious loss of revenue for the state and local authorities.

The fight against tax fraud is crucial in determining taxpayers’ acceptance of the contribution required for state expenditure and investment. In a country such as France, where tax fraud is almost a national sport, combating this scourge will help restore the state’s budgetary sovereignty by making it central to people’s concerns about redistributive justice, tax equality and fair access to public goods.

To explain a fiscal rule that functions in a different way from a constitutional ideal of a welfare state, as Japan's case, and to give a literary examination of that kind of thoughts in modern economics and theory of public finance.

Compares neo‐institutional economics and fiscal sociology about the role of a government, using recent fiscal data of developed countries.

For neo‐institutional economics it is difficult to explain “welfare state” that substitutes the role of a family because the approach can only explain a complementary relationship of organizations in higher levels with lower organizations.

Points out that neo‐institutional economics should be examined by a historical formation of each rule and a real legal system in each country.

Discusses institutional economics and fiscal sociology from an aspect of possibility of applying to the field of public finance and social welfare.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

A reconsideration of some Austrian work in public finance analysis that is based on a positive theory of the state and its relationship with the market economy is offered. The contributions of some prominent Austrian economists are considered, and how they relate to contemporary thinking in public finance. The two central paradigms of the tax state and entrepreneurship are explored.

This paper investigates the impact of state governments’ “Tax and Expenditure Limits” (TELs) on their tax progressivity and redistributive spending. A two stage least squares (2SLS) regression model of data covering 1985-2007, was employed to allow for simultaneity in the relationships between intergovernmental transfer, tax progressivity, expenditure progressivity, and labor mobility. This model tested whether high- or low income residents had paid for and benefited from these fiscal institutions. As a result we find that TELs significantly decrease tax progressivity and increase poverty rate. These two policy effects should be explicitly accounted for in the design or revision of TELs.

This paper aims to assess using a historical approach the challenges facing Somaliland and analyze how the Somalilanders are in the twenty-first century using the globalized financial architecture and system of wealth chains to finance their nascent state and move the debate forward on the calls for self-determination.

Research on this paper included not just a desk review but two research trips to Somaliland and over 20 interviews of politicians, government officials and the private sector and academia.

Today the global wealth chains flowing in and out of Somaliland include some complex ones which include the interactions with other members of the Somali diaspora whether they are in the USA or in Australia where money moves in and out of bank accounts in different countries finally ending up in either Dubai or Djibouti where it is finally transferred through the money transfer agencies into Hargeisa and finally withdrawn by the relative of a diaspora member. The similar wealth chains are those going between traders such as those that already maintain companies in Djibouti because of the war period and continue to live and trade there but have branches in Somaliland. There are simple direct transfers that are easily understood.

Translators had to be used, as some parliamentarians only spoke Kisomali.

No papers have been written on the global banking and finance system with specific reference to Somaliland.

This study compares retirement in Chile and Uruguay, and focuses on current individuals legally entitled to retire, particularly women. The article analyses how labour market and family resources shape the access of women and men to social insurance by investigating the likelihood of retirement after reaching the legal age of retirement.

This study uses the Longitudinal Social Protection Survey (LSPS), a biannual or triennial longitudinal survey carried out in six Latin American countries. To study gender differences in the chance of being retired, the study conducts a series of logit regression models to model retirement as a function of labour market and life course conditions as well as providing descriptive and contextual information.

Main findings support labour market explanations of gender differences in retirement. Work experience, human capital and contribution densities largely explain the chances of retirement and economic autonomy among elderly women. Further analysis reveal that they are both less likely than men to retire but also to work in old age, limiting their economic autonomy.

Data for Uruguay are recent. To maximize comparison between countries, the paper selects the more recent waves with complete administrative information. As a result, the article uses cross-sectional data that might not capture the accumulation of family resources and could fail to provide a complete gendered life course explanation of current disadvantages faced by women.

The article uses novel data in order to place two Latin American countries within mainstream sociological theories of retirement, thus complementing literature that mainly focuses on European and North-American societies. The paper also documents gender gaps in retirement in two different Latin American societies, one with a traditionally generous public pension system (Uruguay) and one with a largely privately-run contributory system (Chile).

This paper seeks to focus on the challenge posed by financial globalization before the traditional Westphalian model of monetary sovereignty, claiming that financial globalization of the world's markets leads to new forms of geopolitical rivalry among contemporary governments.

The paper sets the analytical framework for the study of a tripartite foundation of monetary sovereignty in money manager capitalism, consisting of currency associated with the instruments of its manipulation, which are the two largest independent macroeconomic players: the central bank and the state. This raises the issues of dual sovereignty in economy and the ways in which these entities use their sovereign powers on local and global levels.

Current growing interdependence of financial networks increases the number of choices in monetary issues and forces governments to make ever faster adjustments to the machinery of complex monetary instruments which not only facilitate transactions among very different and distant economies, but also obscure the transparency of decision making. The need to ensure, through the central bank's legislation, an independent status of central bankers with respect to politicians, implies that their work be effectively monitored by the public and the respective parliament.

The independence of central banks, which comprises goal independence, instrument independence and personal independence of the decision‐making body of a central bank, increases the accountability of central bankers and raises the issue of sanctions for their misbehavior.

Financial globalization has definitely raised the issue of redistribution of the authority of governments and non‐state agents. A clear hierarchy between currencies at the global level has dual consequences: first, it amplifies the unequal relationship between the leaders and the followers in global monetary circulation; second, global market forces ignore political borders and present a serious challenge for the monetary sovereignty of contemporary governments. Equally, the question of re‐formulation of the concept of a sovereign state is raised.

Economists have recently emphasized the role which institutional change plays in the process of economic growth and development. Focusing on the behavior of the state, effective constraints on the ruling elite are seen as a necessary precursor to successful economic growth. However, it is argued in this paper that causality runs the other way. Rapid growth (even with dictatorial regimes) leads to political development and institutional structures which provide a foundation for successful long‐term growth. It will be further argued that the greatest potential for stimulating political development comes as the result of rapid agricultural growth. The institutional constraints arising out of political development create an environment within which the ruling elite become developmental rather than predatory. The cases of English and Japanese industrialization will be used to illustrate these ideas. The relevance of the analyses for today's developing countries is discussed and illustrated with reference to the African experience.

The purpose of this paper is to present a critical review of the contributions of multiple theories to accounting and organizational research, which is often referred to as “theoretical triangulation” or “theoretical pluralism”, with a particular focus on the manner in which chosen research methods have informed these efforts at theoretical triangulation.

The authors conduct an analysis of how to employ theoretical triangulations and methodological pluralism in accounting and organizational research. To this end, they use prior empirical evidence for illustrative purposes.

The authors argue that using theories with epistemological tensions that are captured by appropriate research methods enable one to explore different, sometimes even contradictory, layers of meanings of realities pertaining to management accounting information and processes in organizations and society.

The paper contributes to the thinking about the interaction between theory development and research methods chosen by demonstrating how and under what circumstances multiple theories could be meaningfully integrated and executed to provide deeper understandings of accounting and organizational phenomena.