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Tax Morale after the Reunification of Germany: Results from a Quasi-Natural Experiment

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  • Lars P. Feld
  • Benno Torgler

Abstract

This paper provides a comparison of tax morale between inhabitants of East and West Germany in its post-reunification period, using three World Values Survey/European Values Survey waves between 1990 and 1999. The setting of German reunification is particularly interesting for the analysis of tax morale as it is close to a natural experiment. Many factors can be controlled because they are similar, as, e.g., a common language, similar education systems and a shared cultural and political history prior to the separation after the Second World War. As a consequence, an East-West comparison has a methodological advantage compared to cross-country studies. Our findings show higher tax morale in East than in West Germany. However, in only 9 years after reunification, tax morale values strongly converged, especially due to a strong change in the level of tax morale in the East.

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  • Lars P. Feld & Benno Torgler, 2007. "Tax Morale after the Reunification of Germany: Results from a Quasi-Natural Experiment," CREMA Working Paper Series 2007-03, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    • Handle: RePEc:cra:wpaper:2007-03
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    Cited by:

    1. Necker, Sarah & Voskort, Andrea, 2013. "The evolution of German's values since reunification," Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics 13/13, Walter Eucken Institut e.V..
    2. Gloria Alarcón García & Arielle Beyaert & Laura de Pablos, 2012. "Fiscal Awareness: A Study of Female versus Male Attitudes Towards Tax Fraud in Spain," Chapters, in: Michael Pickhardt & Aloys Prinz (ed.), Tax Evasion and the Shadow Economy, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Necker, Sarah & Voskort, Andrea, 2014. "Politics and parents — Intergenerational transmission of values after a regime shift," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 177-194.
    4. Andreas BUEHN & Friedrich SCHNEIDER, 2016. "Size and Development of Tax Evasion in 38 OECD Coutries: What do we (not) know?," Journal of Economics and Political Economy, KSP Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 1-11, March.
    5. Kountouris, Yiannis & Remoundou, Kyriaki, 2013. "Is there a cultural component in tax morale? Evidence from immigrants in Europe," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 104-119.
    6. Jan Schmitz, 2019. "When Two Become One: How Group Mergers Affect Solidarity," Games, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-42, July.
    7. Marè, Mauro & Motroni, Antonello & Porcelli, Francesco, 2020. "How family ties affect trust, tax morale and underground economy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 235-252.
    8. Blesse, Sebastian, 2021. "Are your tax problems an opportunity not to pay taxes? Evidence from a randomized survey experiment," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-040, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    9. Lars P. Feld & Andreas J. Schmidt & Friedrich Schneider, 2011. "Deterrence Policy and the Size of the Shadow Economy in Germany: An Institutional and Empirical Analysis," Chapters, in: Friedrich Schneider (ed.), Handbook on the Shadow Economy, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Rodriguez-Justicia, David & Theilen, Bernd, 2018. "Education and tax morale," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 18-48.
    11. Felix Bransch & Paul Gurr, 2019. "Die Nachfrage nach Steuerberatungsleistungen: Evidenz für deutsche Steuerpflichtige [The Demand for Tax Preparation Services: Evidence from German Taxpayers]," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 71(3), pages 245-270, November.
    12. Konstantinos Fotiadis & Prodromos Chatzoglou, 2022. "The tax morale of exhausted taxpayers. The case of Greece," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 354-377, September.
    13. Mauro Marè & Antonello Motroni & Francesco Porcelli, 2015. "Family Ties and Underground Economy," Working papers 16, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tax Morale; Tax Evasion; Deterrence; Quasi-Natural Experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance
    • H73 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Interjurisdictional Differentials and Their Effects
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments

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