A benchmark result in the political economy of taxation is that majority voting over a linear income tax schedule will result in an inefficiently high tax rate whenever the median voter has a below average income. The present paper examines the role of tax avoidance for this welfare assessment....

We run a large-scale natural field experiment to evaluate alternative strategies to enforce compliance with the law. The experiment varies the text of mailings sent to potential evaders of TV license fees. We find a strong alert effect of mailings, leading to a substantial increase in...

This paper develops a model of social norms and cooperation in large societies. Within this framework we use an indirect evolutionary approach to study the endogenous formation of preferences and the co-evolution of norm compliance. Thereby we link the multiplicity of equilibria, which emerges...

We study tax evasion and decentralized tax enforcement in a federal economy with mobile capital and the endogenous formation of multiregional companies. Regions use their enforcement policy as a strategic instrument to engage in fiscal competition. Within this framework, we analyze the...

We estimate the effect of the level of fines on payment compliance and revenues collected from speeding tickets. Exploiting discontinuous increases in fines at speed cutoffs, we implement a regression discontinuity design. The results document small payment responses: a 10 percent increase in...

We implement a randomized field experiment to study the impact of reminders on dental health prevention. Patients who are due for a check-up receive no reminder, a neutral reminder postcard, or reminders including additional information on the benefits of prevention. Our results document a...

This paper studies the interplay between deadlines and cognitive limitations. We analyze an agent's decision to complete a one-off task under a deadline. Postponing the task can be beneficial for the agent; missing the deadline, however, leads to a drop in the agent's rewards. If the agent...

We discuss survey evidence on individuals' willingness to sanction norm violations - such as evading taxes, drunk driving, fare dodging, or skiving off work - by expressing disapproval or social exclusion. Our data suggest that people condition their sanctioning behavior on their belief about...