Tax me if you can: an artefactual field experiment on dishonesty

Catrine Jacobsen, Marco Piovesan

Research output: Working paperResearch

Abstract

In this paper, we test whether increased salience of a tax charge increases dishonesty using a version of the die-under-cup paradigm. Participants earn money in proportion to the outcome reported and, thus, have an incentive to over-report. We find a significant increase in high outcomes in the presence of a tax frame suggesting that participants use the tax as an excuse to rationalize their dishonest act. In addition, we tested whether adding an explanation for the adoption of the tax would increase honesty. We find evidence for reversed dishonesty with participants reporting significantly more low outcomes. These results warn policy makers about the non-trivial relationship between taxation charges and dishonesty.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationFrederiksberg
PublisherDepartment of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen
Number of pages21
Publication statusPublished - 2015
SeriesIFRO Working Paper
Number2015/05

Cite this