For over 40 years, the benchmark economic model of tax evasion has been the Allingham and Sandmo (1972) model, in which self-interested taxpayers choose how much income to report to the tax authority by trading off the benefits of evasion (lower tax payments) against the costs of evasion (the possibility of being caught and punished). In this model, the key policy parameters affecting tax evasion are the tax rate, the detection probability, and the penalty imposed conditional on the evasion being detected.However, there is an apparent disconnect between much of the academic literature on tax compliance and the administration of tax policy. While tax administrators are obviously concerned about enforcement, they also tend to place a great deal of emphasis on improving "tax morale," by which they generally mean increasing voluntary compliance with tax laws and creating a social norm of compliance. The OECD (2001), for example, noted that " [t]he promotion of voluntary compliance should be a primary concern of revenue authorities" in its principles for good tax administration, and it has highlighted the importance of tax morale more generally (OECD 2013).Tax authorities around the world pursue policies that reflect their belief that nonpecuniary factors are important in tax compliance decisions. More than half of US states have or have had "name and shame" programs in which the names of top tax debtors are revealed publicly on state websites. In a more colorful example, the Tax Morale
Is culture an important determinant of preferences for redistribution? To separate the effect of culture from the effect of the economic and institutional environment ("context"), we relate immigrants' preferences for redistribution to the average preference in their birth countries, controlling extensively for individual characteristics and country-of-residence fixed effects. We find a strong positive relationship. This cultural effect is larger for non-voters, those with shorter tenure in the country of residence, and those who move to countries with a large number of immigrants from their own birth countries. Immigrants from countries with a higher preference for redistribution are also more likely to vote for a more pro-redistribution political party. The effect of culture persists strongly into the second generation.
We examine the effects of exposure to malaria in early childhood on educational attainment and economic status in adulthood by exploiting geographic variation in malaria prevalence in India prior to a nationwide eradication program in the 1950s. We find that the program led to modest increases in household per capita consumption for prime age men, and the effects for men are larger than those for women in most specifications. We find no evidence of increased educational attainment for men, and mixed evidence for women. JEL Codes: H51, I18, J24
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