Income hiding and informal redistribution: A lab-in-the-field experiment in Senegal

Marie Boltz, Karine Marazyan and Paola Villar

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Abstract: We estimate the hidden cost of social obligations to redistribute exploiting data from a controlled setting in urban Senegal, which combines lab-in-the-field measures and out-of-lab follow-up data. We estimate a social tax of about 9 percent. When given the opportunity to get hidden income, individuals decrease by 26 percent the share of gains they transfer to kin — mostly outside the household — and increase health and personal expenses. We expand on prior literature by both identifying the individual cost of informal redistribution and then relating it to postexperiment resource-allocation decisions, and by disentangling intra- and interhousehold redistributive pressure.

Keywords: Africa; Lab-in-the-field experiment; Resource allocation decisions; Extended families; Informal redistribution; Income observability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-03
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Published in Journal of Development Economics, 2019, 137, pp.78-92. ⟨10.1016/j.jdeveco.2018.11.004⟩

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Related works:
Journal Article: Income hiding and informal redistribution: A lab-in-the-field experiment in Senegal (2019)
Working Paper: Income hiding and informal redistribution: A lab-in-the-field experiment in Senegal (2019)
Working Paper: Income Hiding and Informal Redistribution: A Lab-in-the-Field Experiment in Senegal (2017)
Working Paper: Income Hiding and Informal Redistribution: A Lab in the Field Experiment in Senegal (2016)
Working Paper: Income Hiding and Informal Redistribution: A Lab in the Field Experiment in Senegal (2016)
Working Paper: Income Hiding and Informal Redistribution: A Lab in the Field Experiment in Senegal (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-02377013

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2018.11.004

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