Brian Erard's Books

How to Evaluate Tax Expenditures

By: Sebastian Beer,Ms. Dora Benedek,Brian Erard,Jan Loeprick

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How to Evaluate Tax Expenditures

By: Sebastian Beer,Ms. Dora Benedek,Brian Erard,Jan Loeprick

Governments use tax expenditures (TEs) to provide financial support or benefits to taxpayers. The budgetary impact of TEs can be similar to that of direct outlays: after the support is provided, less money is available to fund other government priorities. Systematic evaluations are needed to guide informed decision-mak¬ing and to avoid a situation where the narrative on the benefits of TEs is primarily driven by profiting stakeholders. By TE “evaluation,” this note refers to a process that seeks to systematically inform policymak¬ers on the desirability of introducing or maintaining specific tax benefits by gathering and analyzing avail¬able quantitative and qualitative information on their effects. Evaluation processes can be tailored to different levels of data availability and analytical capacity. An evaluation should focus on the policy objective of a TE and whether it effectively and efficiently contrib¬utes to that policy objective. Although important lessons can be learned from coun¬try practices in implementing increasingly ambitious evaluation processes, there is no single best-practice approach to replicate.

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International Monetary Fund

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ISBN 13

9798400221507

Do Audits Deter or Provoke Future Tax Noncompliance? Evidence on Self-employed Taxpayers

By: Sebastian Beer,Matthias Kasper,Erich Kirchler,Brian Erard

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Do Audits Deter or Provoke Future Tax Noncompliance? Evidence on Self-employed Taxpayers

By: Sebastian Beer,Matthias Kasper,Erich Kirchler,Brian Erard

This paper employs unique tax administrative data and operational audit information from a sample of approximately 7,500 self-employed U.S. taxpayers to investigate the effects of operational tax audits on future reporting behavior. Our estimates indicate that audits can have substantial deterrent or counter-deterrent effects. Among those taxpayers who receive an additional tax assessment, reported taxable income is estimated to be 64% higher in the first year after the audit than it would have been in the absence of the audit. In contrast, among those taxpayers who do not receive an additional tax assessment, reported taxable income is estimated to be approximately 15% lower the year after the audit than it would have been had the audit not taken place. Our results suggest that improved targeting of audits towards noncompliant taxpayers would not only yield more direct audit revenue, it would also pay dividends in terms of future tax collections.

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International Monetary Fund

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ISBN 10

1513517953

ISBN 13

9781513517957

Anthems and Minstrel Shows

The Life and Times of Calixa Lavallée, 1842-1891

By: Brian Christopher Thompson

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Anthems and Minstrel Shows

The Life and Times of Calixa Lavallée, 1842-1891

By: Brian Christopher Thompson

Calixa Lavallée, the composer of “O Canada,” was the first Canadian-born musician to achieve an international reputation. While primarily remembered for the national anthem, Lavallée and his work extended well beyond Canada, and he played a multitude of roles in North American music as a composer, conductor, administrator, instrumentalist, educator, and critic. In Anthems and Minstrel Shows, Brian Thompson analyzes Lavallée’s music, letters, and published writings, as well as newspapers and music magazines of the time, to provide a detailed account of musical life in nineteenth-century North America and the relationship between music and nation. Leaving Quebec at age sixteen, Lavallée travelled widely for a decade as musical director of a minstrel troupe, and spent a year as a bandsman in the Union Army. Later, as a performer and conductor, he built a repertoire that prepared audiences for the intellectually challenging music of European composers and new music by his US contemporaries. His own music extended from national songs to comic operas, and instrumental music, as he shifted between the worlds of classical and popular music. Previously portrayed as a humble French Canadian forced into exile by ignorance and injustice, Lavallée emerges here as ambitious, radical, bohemian, and fully engaged with the musical, social, and political currents of his time. While nationalism and nation-building are central to this story, Anthems and Minstrel Shows asks to which nation – or nations – Lavallée and “O Canada” really belong.

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448

Publisher

McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published Date

ISBN 10

0773584161

ISBN 13

9780773584167

The Story of Shaw's Saint Joan

By: Brian Tyson

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The Story of Shaw's Saint Joan

By: Brian Tyson

The literary genetics of Shaw's most famous play are here examined for the first time. The sources of Saint Joan are closely compared with the original shorthand manuscript and that is compared with its subsequent revisions. This evidence is supplemented by facts drawn from Shaw's correspondence in print, in the British Library, and in private collections, and by accounts both in print and in the correspondence of people who knew Shaw at the time of his writing Saint Joan. The manuscript and its revisions are examined in the light of all that has been written about the play since it first appeared in 1923. Tyson examines the events that led Shaw to write Saint Joan, establishes the times and places of its composition, and speculates on the "models" upon which Shaw may have based his heroine. The scene-by-scene investigation of the original manuscript accounts as far as possible for later alterations and revisions and discusses passages of critical or historical interest. The concluding chapters survey the circumstances surrounding the first production of the play in the United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany and reflect on the impact that Saint Joan has had on drama for more than half a century.

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153

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McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

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ISBN 10

0773585133

ISBN 13

9780773585133

Camille Saint-Saëns

A Life

By: Brian Rees

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Camille Saint-Saëns

A Life

By: Brian Rees

Camille Saint-Saëns began as a child prodigy and was acclaimed in his lifetime as the incarnation of French genius. His was one of the longest careers in musical history, stretching from the traditions of Beethoven to the innovations of the twentieth century, including one of the earliest film scores. As a virtuoso pianist he achieved international fame, while Liszt proclaimed him the world's greatest organist. A prolific composer, there is much more to him than his best-known work, the witty Carnival of the Animals, of which he forbade performances in his lifetime. Among his most notable achievements are the opera Samson et Delila and the Organ Symphony, while the Danse Macabre, second piano concerto and first cello concerto remain much loved.As a young man, he supported the 'new music' of Liszt, Wagner and Berlioz and introduced the symphonic poem into French music. He championed an up-and-coming generation of French composers, most notably Fauré, and played a unique part in transforming French taste from grand opera and operetta to the classical forms of symphony and chamber music, at the same time reviving interest in the music of Bach and Rameau.His personal life was combative, tragic and surrounded by rumour: as a boy during the Revolution of 1848, serving as a National Guard in the war of 1870, and eventually becoming something of an icon of the Third Republic, used in diplomacy as a symbol of French culture.This fascinating book (Chatto & Windus 1999) places his long and controversial career in a turbulent period when music, no less than politics, was undergoing sensational and often stormy change.

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432

Publisher

Faber & Faber

Published Date

ISBN 10

0571287050

ISBN 13

9780571287055

Jesuit Father François Annat and his Role as Minister for Religious Affairs in 17th Century France

By: Brian Van Hove

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Jesuit Father François Annat and his Role as Minister for Religious Affairs in 17th Century France

By: Brian Van Hove

This book explores the tremendous impact of Jesuit Father François Annat (1590-1670), a French government appointee at Court. His religious superiors approved of his taking on this work for the Crown. He served as Minister for Religious Affairs, or Royal Confessor or ‘keeper of the king’s conscience’, for Louis XIV. During Annat’s confessorate of sixteen years, no internal conflict in the Gallican Church was so strong as the Jansenist controversy. Today everything seems different, as revisionist history has viewed Jansenism as an orthodox Augustinian alternative to explain the Catholic Faith, in contrast to the prevailing Spanish Molinism and Suarezianism, whose roots were in Thomism and Aristotle. There was intense internal struggle within the French Church to devise a legal formulary that might decrease the strength of Jansenism. The present work examines the life of Annat in all of its complexities, a life which may have been forgotten by history if not for the celebrated literary figure Blaise Pascal, who was a committed Jansenist and foe of François Annat.

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145

Publisher

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1527565092

ISBN 13

9781527565098

Stripped

A Novel

By: Brian Freeman

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Stripped

A Novel

By: Brian Freeman

In this stunning follow-up to Brian Freeman's remarkable debut novel, Immoral, Detective Jonathan Stride discovers that there are only two ways to go in Las Vegas. You can hit the jackpot. Or you can get Stripped... They looked like isolated cases: a hit-and-run and a celebrity murdered during a fling with a prostitute. No one could ever imagine they'd be linked to a brutal crime in Las Vegas's steamy past—and that the race against the clock to corner a determined serial killer would stir up secrets long thought buried with the dead. As detectives Jonathan Stride and Serena Dial are called separately to investigate, they have no idea what they're stepping into: a world where desperate ambition rules and loyalties know no bounds, and where their own uncharted emotions and sexual desires will reach an explosive conclusion. Shocking, twisted, with edge-of-your-seat suspense, Stripped pushes the limits of its heroes and keeps the reader turning ever page until the last plot twist.

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436

Publisher

Minotaur Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1429900806

ISBN 13

9781429900805

The Story of Napper Tandy

By: Brian Igoe

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The Story of Napper Tandy

By: Brian Igoe

The Last Invasion of Ireland was in 1798. It was led not by a Frenchman, but a Dubliner He was born in Dublin around 1740, the son of an ironmonger. He was Secretary of the Dublin branch of the United Irishmen which with Wolfe Tone he helped found and whom he then went on to represent in America for five years after they were proscribed in 1792. He played a central part in the mismanaged French 'invasion' of Ireland in 1798. He was the lynchpin in the events which led to the Peace of Amiens between England and France in October, 1801. He was sentenced to death by the English, but never executed, a fact which may well have denied him the martyrdom and fame which came to others like Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmett. He was a Brigadier General in the French Republican Army, and received both salary and pension as such until the day he died, August 24th.,1803, in Bordeaux. His name was Napper Tandy.

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Lulu.com

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ISBN 10

1446611485

ISBN 13

9781446611487

Athens and the Cyclades

Economic Strategies 540-314 BC

By: Brian Rutishauser

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Athens and the Cyclades

Economic Strategies 540-314 BC

By: Brian Rutishauser

In Athens and the Cyclades: Economic Strategies 540-314 BC, Brian Rutishauser examines the history and economy of the island region known as the Cyclades during the late sixth to late fourth centuries BC. While certain aspects of geography in the Cyclades remained constant through ancient Greek history, the islanders were able to adapt to changing conditions and to changing hegemony imposed from outside the region, in order to increase economic prosperity. By the time of the Persian Wars many of these islands had their own naval forces, coinage, and monumental architecture. During the fifth century Athens established a naval hegemony over the region, which put an end to these practices. Until the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians maintained stability but redirected wealth generated from commerce and the export of local island products through the payment of tribute and other forms of taxation. The end of the Peloponnesian War saw a period of Spartan rule, followed by a resurgence of Athenian power and a period of shifting hegemonies. During the second half of the fourth century, many of the Cyclades renewed local monumental construction and the issue of local coinage. The Cyclades may have prospered during this period due to their mutual economic interests with Athens, a symbiotic relationship which persisted after the collapse of the Second Athenian League to the end of Athenian control of the temple of Delian Apollo.

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304

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0191626082

ISBN 13

9780191626081

Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship

An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics

By: Hans Henrich Hock,Brian D. Joseph

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Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship

An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics

By: Hans Henrich Hock,Brian D. Joseph

Why does language change? Why can we speak to and understand our parents but have trouble reading Shakespeare? Why is Chaucer's English of the fourteenth century so different from Modern English of the late twentieth century that the two are essentially different languages? Why are Americans and English 'one people divided by a common language'? And how can the language of Chaucer and Modern English - or Modern British and American English - still be called the same language? The present book provides answers to questions like these in a straightforward way, aimed at the non-specialist, with ample illustrations from both familiar and more exotic languages. Most chapters in this new edition have been reworked, with some difficult passages removed, other passages thoroughly rewritten, and several new sections added, e.g. on the regularity of sound change and its importance for general historical-comparative linguistics. Further, the chapter notes and bibliography have all been updated. The content is engaging, focusing on topics and issues that spark student interest. Its goals are broadly pedagogical and the level and presentation are appropriate for interested beginners with little or no background in linguistics. The language coverage for examples goes well beyond what is usual for books of this kind, with a considerable amount of data from various languages of India.

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576

Publisher

Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published Date

ISBN 10

311061328X

ISBN 13

9783110613285

Why Business People Speak Like Idiots

A Bullfighter's Guide

By: Brian Fugere,Chelsea Hardaway,Jon Warshawsky

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Why Business People Speak Like Idiots

A Bullfighter's Guide

By: Brian Fugere,Chelsea Hardaway,Jon Warshawsky

Ole! If you think you smell something at work, there's probably good reason--"bull" has become the official language of business. Every day, we get bombarded by an endless stream of filtered, antiseptic, jargon-filled corporate speak, all of which makes it harder to get heard, harder to be authentic, and definitely harder to have fun. But it doesn't have to be that way. The team that brought you the Clio Award-winning Bullfighter software is back with an entertaining, bare-knuckled guide to talking straight--for those who want to climb the corporate ladder, but refuse to check their personality at the door. Why Business People Speak Like Idiots exposes four traps that transform us from funny, honest and engaging weekend people into boring business stiffs: • The Obscurity Trap: "After extensive analysis of the economic factors facing our industry, we have concluded that a restructuring is essential to maintaining competitive position. A task force has been assembled..." These are the empty calories of business communication. And, unfortunately, they're the rule. The Obscurity Trap catches idiots desperate to sound smart or prove their purpose, and lures them with message-killers like jargon, long-windedness, acronyms, and evasiveness. • The Anonymity Trap: Businesses love clones--easy to hire, easy to manage, easy to train, easy to replace--and almost everyone is all too happy to oblige. We outsource our voice through templates, speechwriters and email, and cave in to conventions that aren't really even rules. • The Hard-Sell Trap: Legions of business people fall prey to the Hard-Sell Trap. We overpromise. We accentuate the positive and pretend the negative doesn't exist. This may work for those pushing Ginsu knives and miracle Abdominizers, but it's dead wrong for persuading business people to listen. • The Tedium Trap: Everyone you work with thinks about sex, tells stories, gets caught up in life's amazing details, and judges everyone else by the way they look and act. We live to be entertained. We all learned that in Psychology 101, except for the business idiots who must have skipped that semester. They tattoo their long executive-sounding titles on their foreheads, dump pre-packaged numbers on their audience, and virtually guarantee that we want nothing to do with them. This is your wake-up call. Personality, humanity and candor are being sucked out of the workplace. Let the wonks send their empty messages. Yours are going to connect. Fast Company magazine named Why Business People Speak Like Idiots one of the ideas and trends that will change how we work and live in 2005. So grab your cape and sharpen your sword. It's time to fight the bull!

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191

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

0743279689

ISBN 13

9780743279680

Do Audits Deter or Provoke Future Tax Noncompliance? Evidence on Self-employed Taxpayers

By: Sebastian Beer,Matthias Kasper,Erich Kirchler,Brian Erard

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Do Audits Deter or Provoke Future Tax Noncompliance? Evidence on Self-employed Taxpayers

By: Sebastian Beer,Matthias Kasper,Erich Kirchler,Brian Erard

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International Monetary Fund

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1513517953

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9781513517957

How to Evaluate Tax Expenditures

By: Sebastian Beer,Ms. Dora Benedek,Brian Erard,Jan Loeprick

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How to Evaluate Tax Expenditures

By: Sebastian Beer,Ms. Dora Benedek,Brian Erard,Jan Loeprick

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International Monetary Fund

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ISBN 13

9798400221507

A Night Garden and Other Stories

By: Brian Drake

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A Night Garden and Other Stories

By: Brian Drake

Literary fiction of humor and horror, poetry and mystery, science fiction and myth, exploring the limits and inner and outer space. Short-short fictions of only a few lines hint at terrible depths. The long story "The Perquisites of His Position" tells a tale of ghostly revenge. The novella "The Darkness of the Heart" relates a story of the day slavery was abolished in Haiti. The satirical "Pangloss Triumphant" tells of a happy hermaphrodite. From the revelations of the aged Don Juan to the musings of B-movie actors trapped in deteriorating celluloid, from the voice of the ancient Sphinx to the senility of a quantum particle at the very end of the physical universe, the thirty-three artfully crafted stories presented here are full of deftly drawn characters, amazing plots, psychological insights, and universal truths.

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224

Publisher

Lulu.com

Published Date

ISBN 10

1105676188

ISBN 13

9781105676185

Blood on the Tracks

The Lifea nd Times of S. Brian Willson

By: Willson, S. Brian

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Blood on the Tracks

The Lifea nd Times of S. Brian Willson

By: Willson, S. Brian

“We are not worth more, they are not worth less.” This is the mantra of S. Brian Willson and the theme that runs throughout his compelling psycho-historical memoir. Willson’s story begins in small-town, rural America, where he grew up as a “Commie-hating, baseball-loving Baptist,” moves through life-changing experiences in Viet Nam, Nicaragua and elsewhere, and culminates with his commitment to a localized, sustainable lifestyle. In telling his story, Willson provides numerous examples of the types of personal, risk-taking, nonviolent actions he and others have taken in attempts to educate and effect political change: tax refusal—which requires simplification of one’s lifestyle; fasting—done publicly in strategic political and/or therapeutic spiritual contexts; and obstruction tactics—strategically placing one’s body in the way of “business as usual.” It was such actions that thrust Brian Willson into the public eye in the mid-’80s, first as a participant in a high-profile, water-only “Veterans Fast for Life” against the Contra war being waged by his government in Nicaragua. Then, on a fateful day in September 1987, the world watched in horror as Willson was run over by a U.S. government munitions train during a nonviolent blocking action in which he expected to be removed from the tracks and arrested. Losing his legs only strengthened Willson’s identity with millions of unnamed victims of U.S. policy around the world. He provides details of his travels to countries in Latin America and the Middle East and bears witness to the harm done to poor people as well as to the environment by the steamroller of U.S. imperialism. These heart-rending accounts are offered side by side with inspirational stories of nonviolent struggle and the survival of resilient communities Willson’s expanding consciousness also uncovers injustices within his own country, including insights gained through his study and service within the U.S. criminal justice system and personal experiences addressing racial injustices. He discusses coming to terms with his identity as a Viet Nam veteran and the subsequent service he provides to others as director of a veterans outreach center in New England. He draws much inspiration from friends he encounters along the way as he finds himself continually drawn to the path leading to a simpler life that seeks to “do no harm.&rdquo Throughout his personal journey Willson struggles with the question, “Why was it so easy for me, a ’good’ man, to follow orders to travel 9,000 miles from home to participate in killing people who clearly were not a threat to me or any of my fellow citizens?” He eventually comes to the realization that the “American Way of Life” is AWOL from humanity, and that the only way to recover our humanity is by changing our consciousness, one individual at a time, while striving for collective cultural changes toward “less and local.” Thus, Willson offers up his personal story as a metaphorical map for anyone who feels the need to be liberated from the American Way of Life—a guidebook for anyone called by conscience to question continued obedience to vertical power structures while longing to reconnect with the human archetypes of cooperation, equity, mutual respect and empathy.

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749

Publisher

PM Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

160486592X

ISBN 13

9781604865929

Blood on the Tracks

The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson : a Psychohistorical Memoir

By: S. Brian Willson

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Blood on the Tracks

The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson : a Psychohistorical Memoir

By: S. Brian Willson

After serving in the Vietnam War, S. Brian Willson became a radical, nonviolent peace protester and pacifist, and this memoir details the drastic governmental and social change he has spent his life fighting for. Chronicling his personal struggle with a government he believes to be unjust, Willson sheds light on the various incarnations of his protests of the U.S. government, including the refusal to pay taxes, public fasting, and, most famously, public obstruction. On September 1, 1987, Willson was run over by a U.S. government munitions train during a nonviolent blocking action in which he expected to be removed from the tracks. Providing a full look into the tragic event, Willson, who lost his legs in the incident, discusses how the subsequent publicity propelled his cause toward the national consciousness. Now, 23 years later, Willson tells his story of social injustice, nonviolent struggle, and the so-called American way of life.

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441

Publisher

Pm Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1604864214

ISBN 13

9781604864212

Book's by Brian Erard

How to Evaluate Tax Expenditures

How to Evaluate Tax Expenditures

Do Audits Deter or Provoke Future Tax Noncompliance? Evidence on Self-employed Taxpayers

Do Audits Deter or Provoke Future Tax Noncompliance? Evidence on Self-employed Taxpayers

Anthems and Minstrel Shows

Anthems and Minstrel Shows

The Story of Shaw's Saint Joan

The Story of Shaw's Saint Joan

Camille Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-Saëns

Jesuit Father François Annat and his Role as Minister for Religious Affairs in 17th Century France

Jesuit Father François Annat and his Role as Minister for Religious Affairs in 17th Century France

Stripped

Stripped

The Story of Napper Tandy

The Story of Napper Tandy

Athens and the Cyclades

Athens and the Cyclades

Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship

Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship

Why Business People Speak Like Idiots

Why Business People Speak Like Idiots

Do Audits Deter or Provoke Future Tax Noncompliance? Evidence on Self-employed Taxpayers

Do Audits Deter or Provoke Future Tax Noncompliance? Evidence on Self-employed Taxpayers

How to Evaluate Tax Expenditures

How to Evaluate Tax Expenditures

A Night Garden and Other Stories

A Night Garden and Other Stories

Blood on the Tracks

Blood on the Tracks

Blood on the Tracks

Blood on the Tracks

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