title: "Willing to Pay?" Tax Compliance in Britain and Italy: An Experimental Analysis.
abstract: As shown by the recent crisis, tax evasion poses a significant problem for countries such as Greece, Spain and Italy. While these societies certainly possess weaker fiscal institutions as compared to other EU members, might broader cultural differences between northern and southern Europe also help to explain citizens' (un)willingness to pay their taxes? To address this question, we conduct laboratory experiments in the UK and Italy, two countries which straddle this North-South divide. Our design allows us to examine citizens' willingness to contribute to public goods via taxes while holding institutions constant. We report a surprising result: when faced with identical tax institutions, redistribution rules and audit probabilities, Italian participants are significantly more likely to comply than Britons. Overall, our findings cast doubt upon "culturalist" arguments that would attribute cross-country differences in tax compliance to the lack of morality amongst southern European taxpayers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Political Sciences, European University Institute, San Domenico di Fiesole (FI), Italy.
authors.forename: Nan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Political Sciences, European University Institute, San Domenico di Fiesole (FI), Italy.|Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology, National Research Council, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Giulia
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Andrighetto
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, Management and Statistics, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Stefania
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ottone
authors.affiliation: Department of Law, Politics, Economics and Social Sciences, University of Eastern Piedmont, Alessandria, Italy.
authors.forename: Ferruccio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ponzano
authors.affiliation: Robert Schumann Center for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, San Domenico di Fiesole (FI), Italy.|Department of Political Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, United States of America.
authors.forename: Sven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Steinmo
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001290:Attitude; D003219:Confidentiality; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D005717:Games, Experimental; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D028681:Moral Obligations; D060926:Remuneration; D013240:Stereotyping; D013660:Taxes; D006113:United Kingdom; D055815:Young Adult