The Response of Taxpayer Compliance to the Large Shock of Italian Unification

Antonio Acconcia, Marcello D'Amato, Riccardo Martina and Marisa Ratto
Additional contact information
Riccardo Martina: CESF - Center for Studies in Economics and Finance - University of Naples Federico II = Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II
Marisa Ratto: LEDa - Laboratoire d'Economie de Dauphine - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: The unification of Italy in 1861 determined that all institutions of the pre-unitary states were replaced by those of the new-born Kingdom of Italy, thus implying common rules for agents formerly obeying to different ones. Moreover, a major tax reform was also set in that determined differential increments of the tax burden across provinces. We investigate the potential implications of these events for tax compliance. By comparing a province-level measure of tax evasion just after the reform with a corresponding recent one, we show a strong process of convergence in compliance. Non-negligible spatial differences in tax evasion, however, still persist nowadays. Further empirical evidence suggests that such differences can be at least in part traced back to the tax reform.

Keywords: tax shock; noncompliance; State formation; decentralized enforcement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-02-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-iue and nep-pbe
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-03132761v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-03132761v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The response of taxpayer compliance to the large shock of Italian unification (2022)
Working Paper: The response of taxpayer compliance to the large shock of Italian unification (2022)
Working Paper: The Response of Taxpayer Compliance to the Large Shock of Italian Unification (2020)
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:wpaper:hal-03132761

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().