Building versus maintaining a perceived confidence-based tax climate: Experimental evidence

Katharina Gangl, Wilco W. van Dijk, Eric van Dijk and Eva Hofmann

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2020, vol. 81, issue C

Abstract: A confidence-based climate between public administrations and citizens is essential. This paper argues and provides empirical evidence that depending on the perceived interaction history, different policies are needed to build versus maintain confidence. Applying the extended Slippery Slope Framework of tax compliance, an online and a laboratory experiment were conducted to explore whether tax authorities’ coercive and legitimate power have different effects depending on whether they are situated in an antagonism-based or confidence-based climate. Results showed that in an antagonism-based interaction climate, a combination of high coercive and high legitimate power changed the climate into a confidence-based interaction climate. In contrast, in a confidence-based climate the same power combination did not maintain but erode the climate. Results also suggest that confidence-based climates are maintained by low coercive power combined with high legitimate power. The paper concludes that interaction climates operate as psychological frames which guide how policy instruments affect taxpayers’ trust in the tax authorities.

Keywords: Slippery Slope Framework; Trust; Cooperation; Tax compliance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487020300714
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:joepsy:v:81:y:2020:i:c:s0167487020300714

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2020.102310

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 ().