Enhancing garbage fee compliance: Insights from a Slovak municipality

Caplanova Anetta (), Sirakovova Eva () and Szakadatova Estera ()
Additional contact information
Caplanova Anetta: Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Finance, University of Economics in Bratislava, Dolnozemska cesta 1, 85235 Bratislava, Slovakia
Sirakovova Eva: Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Finance, University of Economics in Bratislava, Dolnozemska cesta 1, 85235 Bratislava, Slovakia
Szakadatova Estera: Department of Finance, Faculty of Economics and Finance, University of Economics in Bratislava, Dolnozemska cesta 1, 85235 Bratislava, Slovakia

Economics and Business Review, 2024, vol. 10, issue 2, 143-164

Abstract: Tax avoidance and tax evasion remain critical challenges for central or local governments and municipalities. This non-compliance also represents an ethical issue since individuals who benefit from publicly provided services do not contribute to their financing as they are legally required. The study aimed to test whether the use of behavioural interventions would reduce the number of non-payers of the garbage collection fee in the city of Hlohovec, Slovakia. The experiment was carried out by distributing leaflets to households with permanent residence in Hlohovec. The subjects of the experiment were randomly divided into three groups. Households in the control group (number of households is 1,718) did not receive any leaflets, households in the first intervention group (number of households is 1,721) received a leaflet containing a social norm, and households in the second intervention group (number of households is 1,625) received a leaflet containing a deterrent message. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions were used to analyse the data. The results showed that using a social norm did not significantly increase the number of garbage collection fee payers. At the same time, leaflets with deterrent messages led to an increase in outstanding debt. These results suggest that people reacted unfavorably to the perceived threat (deterrent message), and the opposite effect occurred, i.e. this type of intervention led to an increase in the number of non-payers of garbage collection fee.

Keywords: behavioural interventions; nudge; randomised controlled trial; garbage fee collection; local government; social norm; deterrence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D10 R28 R51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.18559/ebr.2024.2.1180 (text/html)

Related works:
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:vrs:ecobur:v:10:y:2024:i:2:p:143-164:n:1006

DOI: 10.18559/ebr.2024.2.1180

Access Statistics for this article

Economics and Business Review is currently edited by Tadeusz Kowalski

More articles in Economics and Business Review from Sciendo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().