Do students behave like real taxpayers in the lab? Evidence from a real effort tax compliance experiment

B-Tier
Journal: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Year: 2016
Volume: 124
Issue: C
Pages: 102-114

Score contribution per author:

0.670 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We report on data from a real-effort tax compliance experiment using three subject pools: students, who do not pay income tax; company employees, whose income is reported by their employer; and self-employed taxpayers, who are responsible for filing and payment. While compliance behavior is unaffected by changes in the level of, or information about the audit probability, higher fines increase compliance. We find subject pool differences: self-assessed taxpayers are the most compliant, while students are the least compliant. Through a simple framing manipulation, we show that such differences are driven by norms of compliance from outside the lab.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:jeborg:v:124:y:2016:i:c:p:102-114
Journal Field
Theory
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-25