Complexity and Distributive Fairness Interact in Affecting Compliance Behavior

Charles Bellemare, Marvin Deversi and Florian Englmaier
Additional contact information
Charles Bellemare: Université Laval
Marvin Deversi: LMU Munich

No 190, Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series from CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition

Abstract: Filing income tax returns or insurance claims often requires that individuals comply with complex rules to meet their obligations. We present evidence from a laboratory tax experiment suggesting that the effects of complexity on compliance are intrinsically linked to distributive fairness. We find that compliance remains largely unaffected by complexity when income taxes are distributed to a morally justified charity. Conversely, complexity significantly amplifies non-compliance when income taxes appear wasted as they are distributed to a morally dubious charity. Our data further suggest that this non-compliance pattern is facilitated through the ambiguity that evolves from mostly unstrategic filing mistakes.

Keywords: complexity; compliance; distributive fairness; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D01 D91 H26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-10-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-iue
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Working Paper: Complexity and Distributive Fairness Interact in Affecting Compliance Behavior (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rco:dpaper:190

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