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Estimating the income reporting function for the self-employed

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  • Lindsay Tedds

Abstract

There is considerable interest in measuring the underground economy using microeconomic data. One such method estimates income under-reporting by households by assuming a known, parametric form of the Engel curve and making the further parametric assumption that households under-report their income by a constant fraction, independent of income. This paper proposes a nonparametric approach which avoids functional form restrictions and enables the reporting function to vary across income levels and household characteristics. I illustrate by estimating the effect of the Canadian Goods and Services Tax on income under-reporting.
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Suggested Citation

  • Lindsay Tedds, 2010. "Estimating the income reporting function for the self-employed," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 669-687, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:empeco:v:38:y:2010:i:3:p:669-687
    DOI: 10.1007/s00181-009-0284-8
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    Cited by:

    1. Lyudmila Nivorozhkina & Sergey Arzhenovskiy & Svetlana Galazova, 2020. "Estimation of Undisclosed Household Earnings Based on the Pissarides-Weber Model Modification," International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), vol. 0(4), pages 635-646.
    2. Hanousek, Jan & Lichard, Tomáš & Torosyan, Karine, 2016. "‘Flattening’ the Tax Evasion: Evidence from the Post-Communist Natural Experiment," CEPR Discussion Papers 11229, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Aristidis Bitzenis & Vasileios Vlachos & Friedrich Schneider, 2016. "An Exploration of the Greek Shadow Economy: Can Its Transfer into the Official Economy Provide Economic Relief Amid the Crisis?," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(1), pages 165-196, January.
    4. Tomas Lichard & Jan Hanousek & Randall K. Filer, 2012. "Measuring the Shadow Economy: Endogenous Switching Regression with Unobserved Separation," Economics Working Paper Archive at Hunter College 438, Hunter College Department of Economics.
    5. Adam, Antonis & Kammas, Pantelis, 2012. "(Tax evasion) power to the people: does "early democratization" increase the size of the informal sector?," MPRA Paper 43343, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Odd E Nygård & Joel Slemrod & Thor O Thoresen, 2019. "Distributional Implications of Joint Tax Evasion," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(620), pages 1894-1923.
    7. Lindsay Tedds, 2010. "Keeping it off the books: an empirical investigation of firms that engage in tax evasion," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(19), pages 2459-2473.
    8. Figari, Francesco & Bazzoli, Martina & Di Caro, Paolo & V. Fiorio, Carlo & Manzo, Marco, 2020. "Size, heterogeneity and distributional effects of self-employment income tax evasion in Italy," EUROMOD Working Papers EM18/20, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    9. Diego Martinez-Lopez, 2013. "The underreporting of income by self-employed workers in Spain," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 353-371, November.
    10. Torregrosa-Hetland, Sara, 2016. "Sticky Income Inequality In The Spanish Transition (1973-1990)," Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 39-80, March.
    11. Bonggeun Kim & John Gibson & Chul Chung, 2017. "Using Panel Data to Estimate Income Under-Reporting by the Self-Employed," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 85(1), pages 41-64, January.
    12. Tomáš Lichard & Jan Hanousek & Randall K. Filer, 2021. "Hidden in plain sight: using household data to measure the shadow economy," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(3), pages 1449-1476, March.
    13. Tedds, Lindsay, 2017. "Implementing a Basic Income Guarantee through the Personal Income Tax System: Benefits, Barriers, and Bothers," MPRA Paper 104003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Åstebro, Thomas & Chen, Jing, 2014. "The entrepreneurial earnings puzzle: Mismeasurement or real?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 88-105.
    15. Christian Traxler, 2009. "Voting over taxes: the case of tax evasion," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 140(1), pages 43-58, July.
    16. Randall K. Filer & Jan Hanousek & Tomáš Lichard & Karine Torosyan, 2019. "‘Flattening’ tax evasion? : Evidence from the post‐communist natural experiment," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 27(1), pages 223-246, January.
    17. Thomas Åstebro, 2017. "The private financial gains to entrepreneurship: Is it a good use of public money to encourage individuals to become entrepreneurs?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 323-329, February.
    18. Paulus, Alari, 2015. "Income underreporting based on income-expenditure gaps: survey vs tax records," ISER Working Paper Series 2015-15, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    19. Matthias Fleckenstein & Francis A. Longstaff, 2023. "Small Business Equity Returns: Empirical Evidence from the Business Credit Card Securitization Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(1), pages 389-425, February.
    20. Diego Martínez López, 2011. "How different are the Spanish self-employed workers by underreporting their incomes?," Working Papers. Serie EC 2011-09, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income under-reporting; Nonparametric estimation; Engel curve; C14; D12; O17;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

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