Empathy, sympathy, and tax compliance

Roberta Calvet Christian and James Alm ()

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2014, vol. 40, issue C, 62-82

Abstract: This paper examines the effect of “empathy” and “sympathy” on tax compliance. We run a series of laboratory experiments in which we observe the subjects’ decisions in a series of one-shot Tax Compliance Games presented at once and with no immediate feedback. Importantly, we employ methods to identify subjects’ sympathy, such as the Davis Empathic Concern Scale and questions about frequency of prosocial behaviors; we also use priming in order to promote subjects’ empathy. Our results suggest that the presence of sympathy in most cases encourages more tax compliance. Our results also suggest that priming to elicit empathy also has a positive impact on tax compliance. These results support the inclusion of noneconomic factors in the analysis of tax compliance behavior.

Keywords: Tax evasion; Emotions; Morality; Identity; Behavioral economics; Experimental economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 H26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (44)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487012001171
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Empathy, Sympathy, and Tax Compliance (2013)
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:eee:joepsy:v:40:y:2014:i:c:p:62-82

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2012.10.001

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Psychology is currently edited by G. Antonides and D. Read

More articles in Journal of Economic Psychology from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().