We use a panel of 189 countries to describe trends in national personal income tax systems between the years 1981 and 2005. Using complete national income tax schedules, we show that tax rates at higher income levels, structural progressivity and the complexity of national tax systems have...

This paper investigates personal income tax (PIT) mimicry at the international level. It is the first to empirically investigate the extent to which PIT mimicry varies along the tax schedule and the first to include nations which are not part of the OECD. We use data on international personal...

This paper examines whether investment in a risky asset depends on future circumstances. We conduct a laboratory experiment where subjects have the opportunity to invest earned income in a risky asset and, depending on randomly assigned treatment states, have the opportunity to respond to the...

We study the differential effects of tax reforms on actual and observed net income inequality in a laboratory experiment where participants first supply effort and then make a tax reporting decision. We show that for a group with relatively homogeneous levels of true gross income, higher taxes...

Motivated by the observation that access to evasion opportunities is distributed heterogeneously across the labor market, this paper examines the extent to which labor supply elasticities with respect to tax rates depend on such evasion opportunities. We first discuss the channels through which...

This paper is the first to provide evidence of efficient taxation of groups with heterogeneous levels of 'tax morale'. We set up an optimal income tax model where high tax morale implies a high subjective cost of evading taxes. The model predicts that 'nice guys finish last': groups with higher...