This paper inverts the usual logic of applied optimal income taxation. It starts from the observed distribution of income before and after redistribution and corresponding marginal tax rates. Under a set of simplifying assumptions, it is then possible to recover the social welfare function that would make the observed marginal tax rate schedule optimal. In this framework, the issue of the optim...

Despite the great popularity in the social sciences of macroquantitative, comparative research during the last two decades and despite the hope laid into the approach to be able to carefully test theories about social macrofenomena, it has had only limited lasting impact on theory building. Symptomatic is the lack of robustness of findings. The cause of this problem is the difficulty of dealing...

This paper examines behavioral economics’ use of the positive-normative distinction in its critique of standard rational choice theory as normative, and argues that it departs from Robbins’ understanding of that distinction in ways that suggest behavioral economists themselves do not observe that distinction. One implication of this is that behavioral economists generally do not recognize Putna...

Economic globalization will give many women in developing countries access to steady and relatively remunerative employment for the first time, potentially shifting bargaining power within their households and changing the choices that are made for their children. This paper exploits a unique setting - a group of tea plantations in South India where women are employed in permanent wage labor an...

Mobile technology is getting changed very fast in commensurate with other technological hyper changes. Buyers’ expectation from a new cellular phone is also changing over time. Producers, thereby, have to keep themselves abreast of changes in customer taste and preferences to attract, capture, grow, and retain both existing and potential customers. This study is set to measure factors affecting...

Classical logic is unfortunately defective with its problematic definition of implication relation, the “material implication”. This work presents a corrected definition of implication relation to replace material implication in classical logic. Common “paradoxes” of material implication are avoided while simplicity and usefulness of the system are reserved with this definition of implication r...

The title of this paper comes from comments made by an ‘angry’ ethnographer during a debriefing session. It reflects his frustration with a certain analytic mentality that would have him justify his observations in terms of the number of times he had witnessed certain occurrences in the field. Concomitant to this was a concern with the amount of time he had spent in the field and the implicatio...

Recently, a large body of research has been devoted to examine the user behavioral patterns and the business implications of social media. However, relatively little research has been conducted regarding users’ deceptive activities in social media; these deceptive activities may hinder the effective application of the data collected from social media to perform e-marketing and initiate business...

Observers of deviant social behavior sometimes communicate disapproval directly or indirectly to the perpetrator of a deviant act. This reaction has been termed ‘social control’. Three field studies were conducted to explore the influence of the number of bystander-observers on the likelihood of social control. We predicted that the presence of others would inhibit people’s tendency to communic...