45 research outputs found
AUDIT STATE DEPENDENT TAXPAYER COMPLIANCE: THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM COLOMBIA
We develop and analyze a dynamic model of individual taxpayer compliance choice that predicts âaudit state dependent taxpayer complianceâ, by distinguishing between naĂŻve and myopic behavior versus sophisticated and forward-looking behavior. We then test experimentally the audit state dependent model by reporting the results from the first tax compliance experiment run in Colombia. Consistent with previous studies as well as theoretical predictions, we find that subjectsâ compliance rates increase in the audit probability and in the fine rate. We also find more novel results, both theoretically and empirically: fine rates should be increased after an audit to discourage otherwise-increased underreporting, and ânudgingâ myopic individuals toward reporting a constant rather than a fluctuating proportion of income would benefit both the taxpayer and the tax authority
Two models of unawareness: comparing the object-based and the subjective-state-space approaches
In this paper we compare two different approaches to modeling unawareness: the object-based approach of Board and Chung (2007) and the subjective-state-space approach of Heifetz, Meier and Schipper (2006)
Too Proud to Stop: Regret in Dynamic Decisions
Many economic situations involve the timing of irreversible decisions. E.g. People decide when to sell a stock or stop searching for a better price. We analyze the behavior of a decision maker who evaluates his choice relative to the ex-post optimal choice in an optimal stopping task. We derive the optimal strategy under such regret preferences, and show how it is different from that of an expected utility maximizer. We also show that if the decision maker never commits mistakes the behavior resulting from this strategy is observationally equivalent to that of an expected utility maximizer. We then test our theoretical predictions in the laboratory. The results from a structural discrete choice model we fit to our data provide strong evidence that many people's stopping behavior is largely determined by the anticipation of and aversion to regret