Perceptions of trust and power are associated with tax compliance:A cross-cultural study

The slippery slope framework (SSF) of tax compliance postulates that taxpayers’ compliance behaviour depends on the two dimensions: trust in authorities and power of authorities. In an attempt to overcome common-method biases, the present study tests the main assumptions of the SSF with a sample of 44 countries/regions. Country/region-level trust and power indices are calculated based on experimental data involving 14,509 participants and related to shadow economy estimates and – as an alternative indicator of non-compliance – corruption indices. The results indicate that both trust and power are negatively related to the size of the shadow economy and the extent of corruption. These results emphasise the importance of both SSF dimensions in combating tax evasion and counterproductive behaviour within a society in general

Non-Standard Errors

In statistics, samples are drawn from a population in a data generating process (DGP). Standard errors measure the uncertainty in sample estimates of population parameters. In science, evidence is generated to test hypotheses in an evidence generating process (EGP). We claim that EGP variation across researchers adds uncertainty: non-standard errors. To study them, we let 164 teams test six hypotheses on the same sample. We find that non-standard errors are sizeable, on par with standard errors. Their size (i) co-varies only weakly with team merits, reproducibility, or peer rating, (ii) declines significantly after peer-feedback, and (iii) is underestimated by participants.Online appendix available at https://bit.ly/3DIQKrB.Please note a full list of authors is available in the working paper

Coercive and legitimate authority impact tax honesty:Evidence from behavioral and ERP experiments

Cooperation in social systems such as tax honesty is of central importance in our modern societies. However, we know little about cognitive and neural processes driving decisions to evade or pay taxes. This study focuses on the impact of perceived tax authority and examines the mental chronometry mirrored in ERP data allowing a deeper understanding about why humans cooperate in tax systems. We experimentally manipulated coercive and legitimate authority and studied its impact on cooperation and underlying cognitive (experiment 1, 2) and neuronal (experiment 2) processes. Experiment 1 showed that in a condition of coercive authority, tax payments are lower, decisions are faster and participants report more rational reasoning and enforced compliance, however, less voluntary cooperation than in a condition of legitimate authority. Experiment 2 confirmed most results, but did not find a difference in payments or self-reported rational reasoning. Moreover, legitimate authority led to heightened cognitive control (expressed by increased MFN amplitudes) and disrupted attention processing (expressed by decreased P300 amplitudes) compared to coercive authority. To conclude, the neuronal data surprisingly revealed that legitimate authority may led to higher decision conflict and thus to higher cognitive demands in tax decisions than coercive authority.Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [24863-G1]; Austrian Economic Chamber (WKO)SCI(E)SSCIARTICLE71108-11171

Monitoring and Pay: An Experiment on Employee Performance under Endogenous Supervision

We present an experimental test of a shirking model where monitoring intensity is endogenous and effort a continuous variable. Wage level, monitoring intensity and consequently the desired enforceable effort level are jointly determined by the maximization problem of the firm. As a result, monitoring and pay should be complements. In our experiment, between and within treatment variation is qualitatively in line with the normative predictions of the model under standard assumptions. Yet, we also find evidence for reciprocal behavior. Our data analysis shows, however, that it does not pay for the employer to solely rely on the reciprocity of employees

Identifying interpretable gene-biomarker associations with functionally informed kernel-based tests in 190,000 exomes

Here we present an exome-wide rare genetic variant association study for 30 biomarkers in 191,640 individuals in the UK Biobank. We perform gene-based association tests for separate functional variant categories to increase interpretability and identify 201 significant gene-biomarker associations, which include novel associations such as GIGYF1 with diabetes markers. In addition to performing gene-based variant collapsing tests, we design and apply variant-category-specific kernel-based tests that integrate quantitative functional variant effect predictions for missense variants, splicing and the binding of RNA-binding proteins. For these tests we present a powerful and computationally efficient combination of the likelihood-ratio and score tests that found 32% more associations than the score test alone. Kernel-based tests identified 12-31% more associations than their gene-based collapsing counterparts with large overlaps, and had advantages in the presence of gain of function missense variants. We introduce local collapsing by amino acid position for missense variants and use this approach to identify potential novel gain of function variants in PIEZO1, and interpret a position-specific association of ABCA1-variants with inflammation marker CRP. Our results show the benefits of separately investigating different functional mechanisms when performing rare-variant association tests, and highlight the strengths of biomarker panels for large biobanks

Does the sole description of a tax authority affect tax evasion? The impact of described coercive and legitimate power.

Following the classic economic model of tax evasion, taxpayers base their tax decisions on economic determinants, like fine rate and audit probability. Empirical findings on the relationship between economic key determinants and tax evasion are inconsistent and suggest that taxpayers may rather rely on their beliefs about tax authority’s power. Descriptions of the tax authority’s power may affect taxpayers’ beliefs and as such tax evasion. Experiment 1 investigates the impact of fines and beliefs regarding tax authority’s power on tax evasion. Experiments 2-4 are conducted to examine the effect of varying descriptions about a tax authority’s power on participants’ beliefs and respective tax evasion. It is investigated whether tax evasion is influenced by the description of an authority wielding coercive power (Experiment 2), legitimate power (Experiment 3), and coercive and legitimate power combined (Experiment 4). Further, it is examined whether a contrast of the description of power (low to high power; high to low power) impacts tax evasion (Experiments 2-4). Results show that the amount of fine does not impact tax payments, whereas participants’ beliefs regarding tax authority’s power significantly shape compliance decisions. Descriptions of high coercive power as well as high legitimate power affect beliefs about tax authority’s power and positively impact tax honesty. This effect still holds if both qualities of power are applied simultaneously. The contrast of descriptions has little impact on tax evasion. The current study indicates that descriptions of the tax authority, e.g., in information brochures and media reports, have more influence on beliefs and tax payments than information on fine rates. Methodically, these considerations become particularly important when descriptions or vignettes are used besides objective information

Non-Standard Errors

In statistics, samples are drawn from a population in a data-generating process (DGP). Standard errors measure the uncertainty in estimates of population parameters. In science, evidence is generated to test hypotheses in an evidencegenerating process (EGP). We claim that EGP variation across researchers adds uncertainty: Non-standard errors (NSEs). We study NSEs by letting 164 teams test the same hypotheses on the same data. NSEs turn out to be sizable, but smaller for better reproducible or higher rated research. Adding peer-review stages reduces NSEs. We further find that this type of uncertainty is underestimated by participants