A free trade area between the Repbulic of Moldova and the European Union: feasibility, perspectives and potential impact.

This publication has been launched within the project “European Union – Republic of Moldova Trade Relations: Current Situation and Perspectives for Enhancement”. The project is sponsored by the Moldova-Soros Foundation. The major goal of this project is to help Moldovan government formulate and adopt balanced and sound positions for the future negotiations with the European Commission, so that an “enhanced trade regime” contributing to the economic modernization of the country and economic integration with EU is achieved.free trade agreement; feasibility study; Moldova; European Union;

Understanding Cross-Cultural Dfferences in Peer Reporting Practices: Evidence from Tax Evasion Games in Moldova and France

Authorities rely on reporting from private citizens to detect and enforce more than a trivial portion of eective law breaking. This article is the first to experimentally study the cultural aspect of peer reporting. By collecting data in a post-Soviet country (Moldova), we focus in particular on how the Soviet legacy of using citizens as private informants may have a long-lasting eect on their willingness to cooperate with state authorities in present day; we then contrast these eects with peer reporting behavior in a Western society (France). Our results suggest that participants in Moldova view the act of cooperating with central authorities as less socially acceptable than subjects in France and that participants in Moldova engage less frequently in peer reporting than participants in France. However, we also find that less reporting does not necessarily imply less tax compliance. Participants in both countries share very similar tax compliance rates. We explain the eect of peer reporting on tax compliance in Moldova by the country’s past experience during the Soviet era when being reported to central authorities was common and came with serious consequences for the person being denounced, ranging from shaming to expropriation.U n d e r s t a n d i n g C r o s s-C u l t u r a l D f f e r e n c e s i n P e e r R e p o r t i n g P r a c t i c e s : E v i d e n c e f r o m T a x E v a s i o n G a me s i n Mo l d o v a a n d F r a n c e R u s t a m R o m a n i u c D i m i t r i D u b o i s E u g e n D i m a n t A d r i a n L u p u s o r A d r i a n L u p u s o r & V a l e r i u P r o h n i t c h i C E E-M Wo r k i n g P a p e r 2 0 2 0-1