Experimental Estimates of Taxpayer Ethics

This paper extends the existing literature on taxpayer ethics in three ways. First, we construct a two-stage model of decision making, which allows us to disentangle risk preferences from ethical motivations for income tax compliance. Second, we develop a new experimental data set, which permits us...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Review of social economy 2011-03, Vol.69 (1), p.29-53
Main Authors: Eisenhauer, Joseph G., Geide-Stevenson, Doris, Ferro, David L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Compliance
Decision Making
Demographics
Economic models
Estimated taxes
ethical preferences
Ethics
Expected utility
Income
Income Tax
Income taxes
Marital Status
Modelling
Morality
Motivation
Personality
Personality traits
Preferences
Risk
Risk aversion
Sex
shadow price of morality
Social ethics
Sociodemographic Factors
Studies
Tax audits
Tax evasion
Taxation
Taxpayers
Taxpaying
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Summary:This paper extends the existing literature on taxpayer ethics in three ways. First, we construct a two-stage model of decision making, which allows us to disentangle risk preferences from ethical motivations for income tax compliance. Second, we develop a new experimental data set, which permits us to estimate the magnitudes of the relevant personality traits, risk aversion and morality, at the individual level. Third, we combine the experimental data with participant surveys so that ethical preferences are not only measured but also linked to demographic characteristics. We find that ethical preferences are correlated with risk aversion, age, gender, and marital status, among other characteristics.
ISSN:0034-6764
1470-1162
DOI:10.1080/00346760802714867