We study optimal income taxation in a framework where one's willingness to report his income truthfully is positively correlated with his type. We show that allowing low-productivity types to cheat leads to Pareto-superior outcomes as compared to deterring them, even if audits can be performed...

We present the first randomized survey experiment in the context of tax compliance to assess the role of social norms and reciprocity for intrinsic tax morale. We find that participants in a social-norm treatment have lower tax morale relative to a control group while participants in a...

This paper studies the impact of "nudges" on taxpayers with varying tax compliance histories in Papua New Guinea. We present the results from two population-wide randomized controlled trials in a setting that is characterized by low compliance rates and a lack of effective enforcement. We test...

We study a field experiment on tax compliance in Slovenia. Small accounting companies were randomly assigned to an untreated control group and two treatment groups. Companies in the first treatment group received a letter that highlighted the importance of paying taxes and informed about the...

This paper offers a first empirical investigation of how labor taxation (income and payroll taxes) affects individuals' well-being. For identification, we exploit exogenous variation in tax rules over time and across demographic groups using 26 years of German panel data. We find that the tax...

The success of the flat rate tax in Eastern Europe suggests that this concept could also be amodel for the welfare states of Western Europe. The present paper uses a simulation modelto analyse the effects of revenue neutral flat rate tax reforms on equity and efficiency for thecase of Germany...

Several countries have recently abolished or significantly reduced their taxes on bequests.Bequest taxes, on the other hand, were among the first to be introduced when modernsystems of taxation were developed at the end of the nineteenth century. We propose anexplanation for these facts which is...

As more and more Venezuelans leave their country, fleeing the economic and social crisis, the number of Venezuelans in Brazil has risen steadily since 2016, constituting about 18.6 percent of Brazil's 1.4 million refugee and migrant population as of October 2020. Past research finds that the...

The alcohol industry argues that alcohol excise taxes do not reduce heavy drinking because of substitutions to lower-cost products and that these taxes disproportionately burden low-income drinkers. Alternatively, some economists have argued that increases in alcohol excise taxes reduce heavy...

We document contemporaneous differences in the aggregate labor supply of married couples across 17 European countries and the US. Based on a model of joint household decision making, we quantify the contribution of international differences in non-linear labor income taxes and consumption taxes...