We study the impact of media bias on tax compliance. Through a framed laboratory experiment, we assess how the exposure to biased news about government action affects compliance in a repeated taxation game. Subjects treated with positive news are significantly more compliant than the control group. The exposure to negative news, instead, does not prompt any significant reaction in respect to the neutral condition, suggesting that participants perceive the media negativity bias in the selection and tonality of news as the norm rather than the exception. Overall, our results suggest that biased news act as a constant source of psychological priming and play a vital role in taxpayers' compliance decisions.
Periodic rotation of staff in public administration may lead to lower corruption, as it disrupts long-term relationships between public officials and potential bribers. This paper proposes an experimental design that tests the anti-corruption effect of staff rotation in situations where public officials have committed to reciprocating bribes. We find that staff rotation does not influence the proportion of firms offering bribes but does reduce the share of bribe acceptance and inefficient decisions owing to bribery. The outcome of the staff-rotation treatment, in which firms offered bribes even though they were rarely accepted by officials, is consistent with the game having a quantal response equilibrium.
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