Collaborative Tax Evasion in the Provision of Services to Consumers—A Field Experiment
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Annabelle Doerr
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Sarah Necker
- American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (Forthcoming)
Abstract
We conduct a field experiment with sellers of home-improvement
services on two German online markets. We take the role of consumers
and vary whether we request an invoice for the delivery of
the service. In a market which allows anyone to sell anonymously,
a willingness to evade is prevalent. In a market that keeps track of
credentials, sellers are only willing to evade when a willingness to
collude is signaled. The evasion discount is in most estimates not
larger than the tax subsidy for legal demand. Evasion is unlikely
to be beneficial for many consumers in our setting.
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