Reciprocal relationships in tax compliance decisions
Cécile Bazart and
Aurélie Bonein ()
Journal of Economic Psychology, 2014, vol. 40, issue C, 83-102
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)
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 (34)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487012001183
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
Related works:
Working Paper: 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:eee:joepsy:v:40:y:2014:i:c:p:83-102
DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2012.10.002
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 ().