Very little is known about the efficient collection of fines despite their indispensable contribution to local government budgets. This paper fills an important gap in the literature by studying the effectiveness of deterrence (enforcement) and non-deterrence (social norms) letters that aim to...

The ability of a tax authority to successfully collect taxes depends critically on both its relationship with the taxpayers and how strongly these taxpayers are committed to contributing to the common good. We present evidence on a new non-intrusive approach aimed at fostering the commitment to...

Governments in Latin America raise little revenue from property taxation, despite arguments for its efficiency and equity. Adequate registry information would support consistent collection, but registries are costly to establish and maintain. Compared to tax collection, field experimental...

Tax compliance nudges are used increasingly by governments because of their perceived cost-effectiveness in raising tax revenue. We collect about a thousand treatment effect estimates from 45 randomized controlled trials, and synthesize this rapidly growing literature using meta-analytical...

We present new evidence that a non-threatening behavioral intervention appealing to reciprocity significantly increases tax compliance in a setting (i.e., crisis-ridden Argentina) where one might least expect such an intervention to succeed. Prior research offers many examples of the efficacy of...

We study the causal effects of household tax credits on the willingness to demand legally provided services using two survey experiments with 1.974 German homeowners. Participants choose between hypothetical offers of service providers and are randomly assigned to a policy scenario 1) without a...

We conducted a randomised controlled trial in Indonesia to evaluate the effect of three intervention letters on tax penalty compliance behaviour. Over 10,000 individual taxpayers are randomly assigned to receive either a deterrence, information, or simplification letter, or no letter. Our...

We develop a framework to analyze partial population experiments, a generalization of the cluster experimental design where clusters are assigned to different treatment intensities. Our framework allows for heterogeneity in cluster sizes and outcome distributions. We study the large-sample...

This paper investigates the effect of electronic payments technology on firms’ tax compliance in a large developing economy. We consider India’s demonetization policy which, by limiting the availability of cash, led to a large increase in the use of electronic forms of payments. Using...

This study examines the relation between risk-based tax audit strategies and corporate tax avoidance. We exploit OECD data across 54 countries on risk profiling, predictive modeling, and internal intelligence functions in tax administrations from 2014 to 2017 to investigate whether risk-based...