IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/5628.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measuring true sales and underreporting with matched firm-level survey and tax-office data

Author

Listed:
  • Zhou, Fujin
  • Oostendorp, Remco

Abstract

This paper uses firm-level survey data matched with official tax records to estimate the unobserved true sales of formal firms in Mongolia. Taking into account firm-level incentives to comply with taxes and a production function technology linking unobserved true sales with observable firm-level production characteristics, the authors derive a multiple-indicators, multiple-causes model predicting unobserved true sales. Comparing predicted true sales with sales reported to the tax office, the analysis finds that 38.6 percent of firm-level sales are underreported. It also finds evidence that firm-level survey data suffer from significant underreporting. Finally, the paper compares this approach with two alternative approaches to measuring underreporting by firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhou, Fujin & Oostendorp, Remco, 2011. "Measuring true sales and underreporting with matched firm-level survey and tax-office data," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5628, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5628
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2011/04/06/000158349_20110406084954/Rendered/PDF/WPS5628.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Johnson, Simon & Kaufmann, Daniel & McMillan, John & Woodruff, Christopher, 2000. "Why do firms hide? Bribes and unofficial activity after communism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 495-520, June.
    2. Giles, David E A, 1999. "Measuring the Hidden Economy: Implications for Econometric Modelling," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(456), pages 370-380, June.
    3. Crocker, Keith J. & Slemrod, Joel, 2005. "Corporate tax evasion with agency costs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(9-10), pages 1593-1610, September.
    4. Graetz, Michael J & Reinganum, Jennifer F & Wilde, Louis L, 1986. "The Tax Compliance Game: Toward an Interactive Theory of Law Enforcement," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 2(1), pages 1-32, Spring.
    5. Pommerehne, Werner W & Weck-Hannemann, Hannelore, 1996. "Tax Rates, Tax Administration and Income Tax Evasion in Switzerland," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 88(1-2), pages 161-170, July.
    6. Dabla-Norris, Era & Gradstein, Mark & Inchauste, Gabriela, 2008. "What causes firms to hide output? The determinants of informality," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1-2), pages 1-27, February.
    7. Arne Bigsten & Paul Collier & Stefan Dercon & Marcel Fafchamps & Bernard Gauthier & Jan Willem Gunning & Abena Oduro & Remco Oostendorp & Cathy Patillo & Måns S–derbom & Francis Teal & Albert Zeufack, 2003. "Credit Constraints in Manufacturing Enterprises in Africa," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 12(1), pages 104-125, March.
    8. Frey, Bruno S. & Weck-Hanneman, Hannelore, 1984. "The hidden economy as an 'unobserved' variable," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(1-2), pages 33-53.
    9. Teal, Francis, 1996. "The Size and sources of economic rents in a developing country manufacturing labour market," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(437), pages 963-976, July.
    10. Roberto Dell’Anno & Miguel Gómez-Antonio & Angel Alañon-Pardo, 2007. "The shadow economy in three Mediterranean countries: France, Spain and Greece. A MIMIC approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 197-197, July.
    11. Loayza, Norman V., 1996. "The economics of the informal sector: a simple model and some empirical evidence from Latin America," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 129-162, December.
    12. Dominik H. Enste & Friedrich Schneider, 2000. "Shadow Economies: Size, Causes, and Consequences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(1), pages 77-114, March.
    13. Van de Ven, Wynand P. M. M. & Van Der Gaag, Jacques, 1982. "Health as an unobservable : A MIMIC-model of demand for health care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 157-183, August.
    14. Cull, Robert & Xu, Lixin Colin, 2005. "Institutions, ownership, and finance: the determinants of profit reinvestment among Chinese firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 117-146, July.
    15. Kong-Pin & C.Y. Cyrus Chu, 2005. "Internal Control versus External Manipulation: A Model of Corporate Income Tax Evasion," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(1), pages 151-164, Spring.
    16. Mark Doms & Eric J. Bartelsman, 2000. "Understanding Productivity: Lessons from Longitudinal Microdata," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(3), pages 569-594, September.
    17. Donald Siegel, 1997. "The Impact Of Computers On Manufacturing Productivity Growth: A Multiple-Indicators, Multiple-Causes Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(1), pages 68-78, February.
    18. Kong-Pin Chen & C.Y. Cyrus Chu, 2005. "Internal Control vs. External Manipulation: A Model of Corporate Income Tax Evasion," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(4), pages 151-164, Winter.
    19. Anderson,James, 1998. "The size, origins, and character of Mongolia's informal sector during the transition," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1916, The World Bank.
    20. Allingham, Michael G. & Sandmo, Agnar, 1972. "Income tax evasion: a theoretical analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3-4), pages 323-338, November.
    21. Gatti, Roberta & Honorati, Maddalena, 2007. "Informality among Formal Firms: Firm-level, Cross-country Evidence on Tax Compliance and Access to Credit," CEPR Discussion Papers 6597, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    22. Dollar, David & Hallward-Driemeier, Mary & Mengistae, Taye, 2005. "Investment Climate and Firm Performance in Developing Economies," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(1), pages 1-31, October.
    23. Chaudhuri, Kausik & Schneider, Friedrich & Chattopadhyay, Sumana, 2006. "The size and development of the shadow economy: An empirical investigation from states of India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 428-443, August.
    24. Ms. Junko Koeda & Ms. Era Dabla-Norris, 2008. "Informality and Bank Credit: Evidence from Firm-Level Data," IMF Working Papers 2008/094, International Monetary Fund.
    25. Aigner, Dennis & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Peter, 1977. "Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 21-37, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kiyoyasu Tanaka & Souknilanh Keola, 2017. "Shedding Light on the Shadow Economy: A Nighttime Light Approach," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(1), pages 32-48, January.
    2. Badaoui, Eliane & Walsh, Frank, 2022. "Productivity, non-compliance and the minimum wage," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    3. Roberto Dell’Anno, 2023. "Measuring the unobservable: estimating informal economy by a structural equation modeling approach," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 30(1), pages 247-277, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Friedrich SCHNEIDER, 2016. "Estimating the Size of the Shadow Economy: Methods, Problems and Open Questions," Turkish Economic Review, KSP Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 256-280, June.
    2. 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.
    3. James Alm, 2019. "What Motivates Tax Compliance?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 353-388, April.
    4. Pedroni, Florencia Verónica & Briozzo, Anahí & Pesce, Gabriela, 2022. "Firm-level determinants of business tax evasion in emerging economies: the case of Argentina [Determinantes microeconómicos de la evasión tributaria empresarial en economías emergentes: el caso de ," Revista de Métodos Cuantitativos para la Economía y la Empresa = Journal of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, vol. 34(1), pages 83-117, December.
    5. Henrik Jacobsen Kleven & Claus Thustrup Kreiner & Emmanuel Saez, 2016. "Why Can Modern Governments Tax So Much? An Agency Model of Firms as Fiscal Intermediaries," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(330), pages 219-246, April.
    6. Axel Dreher & Christos Kotsogiannis & Steve McCorriston, 2009. "How do institutions affect corruption and the shadow economy?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 16(6), pages 773-796, December.
    7. Schneider Friedrich & Buehn Andreas, 2017. "Shadow Economy: Estimation Methods, Problems, Results and Open questions," Open Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-29, March.
    8. Chiarini, Bruno & Ferrara, Maria & Marzano, Elisabetta, 2022. "Tax evasion and financial accelerator: A corporate sector analysis for the US business cycle," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    9. George M. Georgiou, 2007. "Measuring the Size of the Informal Economy: A Critical Review," Working Papers 2007-1, Central Bank of Cyprus.
    10. Lindsay M. Tedds, 2005. "Keeping It Off The Books: An Empirical Investigation Into the Characteristics of Firms That Engage In Tax Non-Compliance," Department of Economics Working Papers 2005-01, McMaster University.
    11. Florencia Verónica Pedroni & Anahí Briozzo & Gabriela Pesce, 2022. "Determinants of unreported income in Latin American companies: a business perspective," International Journal of Economic Policy in Emerging Economies, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 16(1), pages 58-83.
    12. Capasso, Salvatore & Jappelli, Tullio, 2013. "Financial development and the underground economy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 167-178.
    13. Chletsos, Michael & Sintos, Andreas, 2021. "Hide and seek: IMF intervention and the shadow economy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 292-319.
    14. David Joulfaian, 2009. "Bribes and Business Tax Evasion," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 6(2), pages 227-244, December.
    15. Axel Dreher & Christos Kotsogiannis & Steve McCorriston, 2011. "The Impact of Institutions on the Shadow Economy and Corruption: A Latent Variables Approach," Chapters, in: Friedrich Schneider (ed.), Handbook on the Shadow Economy, chapter 13, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Florencia Verónica Pedroni & Anahí Briozzo & Gabriela Pesce, 2019. "¿Por qué no declarar todo? Determinantes de la subfacturación empresarial en la Argentina," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4186, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    17. Kiyoyasu Tanaka & Souknilanh Keola, 2017. "Shedding Light on the Shadow Economy: A Nighttime Light Approach," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(1), pages 32-48, January.
    18. Lumir Abdixhiku, Geoff Pugh, Iraj Hashi, 2018. "Business Tax Evasion in Transition Economies: A Cross-Country Panel Investigation," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 15(1), pages 11-36, June.
    19. Edoardo Di Porto, 2011. "Undeclared Work, Employer Tax Compliance, and Audits," Public Finance Review, , vol. 39(1), pages 75-102, January.
    20. Schneider, Friedrich, 2014. "The Shadow Economy and Shadow Labor Force: A Survey of Recent Developments," IZA Discussion Papers 8278, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Taxation&Subsidies; Microfinance; Emerging Markets; Economic Theory&Research; Debt Markets;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business
    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5628. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.