The aim of this book, first published in 1991, is not to examine the moral or economic rights and wrongs of the issue, but to introduce a fresh way of exploring this old but growing problem. Research into tax evasion has been bedevilled with measurement problems: the hidden economy has been well named. The key is to design experimental situations that engage the same psychological processes as their real-world counterparts. This has been achieved by embedding the declaration of taxes in simulated business games. A feature of the research is that it is cross-national (carried out in the Netherlands and the UK), which also enhances ecological validity. This work will be of particular interest to applied social psychologists, tax researchers and experimental economists.
Contents
Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. Tax evasion in theory and in practice; 2. The problem of measurement; 3. Social comparison, equity, attitudes, and tax evasion; 4. Framing, opportunity, and individual differences; 5. The subjects' view; 6. Tax-evasion experiments: an economists' view Frank A. Cowell; 7. The conduct of tax-evasion experiments: validation, analytical methods, and experimental realism Susan B. Long and Judyth A. Swingen; 8. Reply and conclusions; References; Subject index; Author index.
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