Tax Morale after the Reunification of Germany: Results from a Quasi-Natural Experiment

Lars Feld and Benno Torgler

CREMA Working Paper Series from Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA)

Abstract: This paper provides a comparison of tax morale between inhabitants of East and West Germany in its post-reunification period, using three World Values Survey/European Values Survey waves between 1990 and 1999. The setting of German reunification is particularly interesting for the analysis of tax morale as it is close to a natural experiment. Many factors can be controlled because they are similar, as, e.g., a common language, similar education systems and a shared cultural and political history prior to the separation after the Second World War. As a consequence, an East-West comparison has a methodological advantage compared to cross-country studies. Our findings show higher tax morale in East than in West Germany. However, in only 9 years after reunification, tax morale values strongly converged, especially due to a strong change in the level of tax morale in the East.

Keywords: Tax Morale; Tax Evasion; Deterrence; Quasi-Natural Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D78 H26 H73 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Tax Morale after the Reunification of Germany: Results from a Quasi-Natural Experiment (2007)
Working Paper: Tax Morale after the Reunification of Germany: Results from a Quasi-Natural Experiment (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cra:wpaper:2007-03

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