Economic Experiments on Tax Compliance, Harassment Bribes, and Diverse Committees

This Doctoral thesis includes three chapters. In Chapter 1, An Experimental Study on the Role of Social Norms About Tax Compliance, we study which social norms shape taxpayers’ avoidance behaviour. We look at the direct effect on tax avoidance and evasion and how the two interact with social norms and rule-following concerns. We also experimentally manage empirical and normative expectations to look at their role in determining tax avoidance. In Chapter 2, Incentives for whistle-blowing: An Experiment, we investigate the effectiveness of financial rewards in encouraging optimal whistle-blowing. To do so, we conduct a laboratory experiment that features a two-player bribery game between a public official and a citizen. First, the public official decides whether (and how much) to ask for a bribe. Then, the citizen jointly decides whether to pay the bribe and whether to report the public official for corruption. We use a between-subject experimental design that varies the accuracy of the judicial system (defined as the probability of type-1 and type-2 errors) and the evidence threshold required for proving guilt (defined as the cost of reporting). In Chapter 3, Diverse Committees, we investigate the potential of diversity to influence committee decision-making. We present a model in which committee members receive private information on a state of the world, deliberate and vote. Committee members belong to one of two groups which may differ along two dimensions: (a) their preferences and (b) their information structures. We test the model’s key predictions in a laboratory experiment.