Reciprocal relationships in tax compliance decisions

Cécile Bazart and Aurélie Bonein ()

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Reciprocity considerations are important to the tax compliance problem as they may explain the global dynamics of tax evasion, beyond individual tax evasion decisions, toward a downward or upward spiral. To provide evidence on reciprocity in tax compliance decisions, we have conducted a laboratory experiment in which we introduced two types of inequities. The first type of inequity is called vertical, because it refers to inequities introduced by the government when it sets different fiscal parameters for identical taxpayers, while the second type of inequity is called horizontal because it refers to the fact that taxpayers may differ in tax compliance decisions. In this setting, taxpayers may react to a disadvantageous or advantageous inequity through negative or positive reciprocal behaviors, respectively. Our results support the existence of negative and positive reciprocity in both vertical and horizontal cases. When both inequities come into play and may induce reciprocal behaviors in opposite directions, the horizontal always dominates the vertical.

Keywords: Behavioral economics; experimental economics; fairness; tax evasion; tax compliance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-iue
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00867505v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

Published in Journal of Economic Psychology, 2014, 40 (Special Issue on Behavioral Dynamics of Tax Evasion), pp.83-102. ⟨10.1016/j.joep.2012.10.002⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00867505v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Reciprocal relationships in tax compliance decisions (2014)
Working Paper: Reciprocal Relationships in Tax Compliance Decisions (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00867505

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2012.10.002

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().