Economica

One can be independent, or one can be subject to decisions made by others. This paper argues that this difference, embodied in the institutional distinction between the decision‐making procedures ‘market’ and ‘hierarchy’, affects individual wellbeing beyond outcomes. Taking self‐employment as an important case of independence, it is shown that the self‐employed derive higher satisfaction from work than those employed in organizations, irrespective of income gained or hours worked. This is evidence for procedural utility: people value not only outcomes, but also the processes leading to outcomes.

We develop an agency model explaining why third‐party information reporting by firms makes tax enforcement successful. While third‐party reporting would be ineffective with frictionless collusion between firms and employees, collusive evasion is impossible to sustain in firms with many employees and accurate business records as any single employee may reveal evasion. We embed our agency model into a macro model where the number of employees grows with development, showing that the tax take evolves as an S‐shape driven by changes in third‐party information. We show that our model is consistent with a set of stylized facts on taxation and development.

Official interest rate changes should influence short rates on money market instruments and retail products, such as deposit accounts and mortgages, but complete pass‐through is often taken for granted. This paper provides a theoretical and econometric framework for assessing the evidence for this assumption using seventeen years of monthly data for rates on thirteen deposit and mortgage products offered by individual UK financial institutions. The methodology allows for asymmetries and non‐linearities in adjustment and the results show that the speed of adjustment in retail rates depends on whether the perceived ‘gap’ between retail and base rates is widening or narrowing.