Import tariff receipts represent an important share of government revenues in many developing countries and there has recently been a surge in empirical studies showing how evasion in this field is a pervasive phenomenon. In the case of import tariffs, the tax base is the product of quantity and...

We show how experience and dynamic learning processes reduce the obstacles to optimization imposed by information frictions when individuals newly enter the formal sector economy. Most importantly, we provide causal evidence on the exact mechanisms through which individuals learn about the...

Recent years have witnessed the growth of mass-marketed tax avoidance schemes aimed at the middle (not top) of the income distribution, with significant implications for tax revenue. We examine the consequences, for the structure of income tax, and for tax authority anti-avoidance efforts, of...

During the period 1996-2000, the coverage of VAT in Pakistan rose by twenty times in terms of the number of firms in the tax net and by ten times in terms of the volume of transactions subject to it. This paper leverages this staggered introduction of VAT in the country to estimate its...

The main goal of this study is two-fold: (1) to provide a general overview of thecontributions to the literature on the informal sector, with a special focus on the PublicChoice approach; and (2) to compare these contributions across two institutionallydifferent types of countries: developed and...

The austerity plans implemented in Greece in 2010 have yielded lower than expected increases in tax receipts. We argue that this has been the result of the arbitrage that firms face when choosing to declare their activity. A tax hike has a direct effect on the degree of tax evasion, and an...

This paper analyzes the relationship between cash and tax evasion by studying the effects of two measures to fight evasion: accessing taxpayers’ banking data to check the consistency with reported income and discouraging the use of cash with thresholds on payments. We show that variation in...

This paper utilizes an otherwise standard micro-founded general-equilibrium setup, which is augmented with a revenue-extraction mechanism to assess the magnitude of VAT evasion. The model is calibrated to Bulgaria after the introduction of the currency board (1999-2014), as one of the very few...

This paper aims to provide a thorough theoretical formalisation of the ‘slippery slope’ framework in order to highlight the effects and the macroeconomic implications of the dynamics between power and trust. In particular, the proposed model is able to differentiate between coercive and...

Arguably, for many citizens the perceived expected disutility from sanctions is smaller than the monetary gain from tax evasion. Nevertheless most people pay their taxes most of the time. In a lab experiment, we show that the willingness to pay taxes even absent enforcement is indeed pronounced....