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Field
Last Published
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Before
October 02, 2023 04:51 PM
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After
October 02, 2023 04:59 PM
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Intervention (Public)
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Before
We will employ various messaging interventions to assess their impact on taxpayer perceptions and willingness to pay or evade taxes within the context of the Honduran tax administration (SAR, as per its Spanish acronym). We have four treatment arms:
• The control group, which received basic information about SAR's role in tax collection, together with an image of the locations of the SAR offices in Honduras.
• The "perception" treatment group, which is going to receive basic information about SAR's role in tax collection and information about SAR's reputation as one of the most honest tax authorities in Latin America, backed by a graph using survey data indicating it as the second most honest tax authority institution in the Latin American region.
• The "purge" treatment group, which is going to receive basic information about SAR's role in tax collection and information about SAR's recognition of corruption as a significant issue and its recent efforts to combat it, including a graph highlighting the personnel renewal done by the institution.
• The "combined" treatment group, which is going to receive the information from the "perception" treatment first, followed by the "purge" treatment information.
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After
In this project, we will employ various messaging interventions to assess their relative impact on taxpayer perceptions and willingness to pay or evade taxes within the context of the Honduran tax administration (SAR, as per its Spanish acronym). There are four treatment arms:
• The control group, which received basic information about SAR's role in tax collection, together with an image of the locations of the SAR offices in Honduras.
• The "perception" treatment arm, which provides basic information about SAR's role in tax collection and information about SAR's reputation as one of the less corrupt tax authorities in Latin America, backed by a graph using survey data indicating it as the second most honest tax authority institution in the Latin American region.
• The "purge" treatment, which transmits SAR's recognition of corruption as a significant issue and its recent efforts to combat it. The message highlights the personnel renewal done by the institution for the purpose of reducing corruption and includes a simple figure to illustrate the magnitude of the reform.
• The "combined" treatment arm, which combines the two previous information treatments with the "perception" message followed by the "purge" treatment.
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Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
SAR Transparency, Probability SAR Agent Bribed, SAR's Capability, Willingness to Bribe SAR Agent, Discount Offer Rejected, No Lie Dice Game.
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After
Perception of Corruption of the SAR, Citizens’ Perception of their Fellow Citizen’s Corruption, Probability that a SAR Agent will Accept a Bribe, SAR's Capability.
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Primary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Before
We divide our outcomes in two different groups. The first one is referred to the beliefs and perceptions group, which includes:
1. SAR Transparency: This metric comprises a self-reported outcome in which respondents rate, on a scale from 0 (completely lacking transparency) to 10 (very transparent), their perception of the transparency of SAR officials. We are also going to include as an outcome the difference between this variable and the perceptions of transparency of the public administration in general (explained in the Experiment Design section).
2. Probability SAR Agent Bribed: This metric comprises respondents' beliefs regarding the probability that an SAR official might request gifts or money in exchange for resolving or preventing tax-related issues for taxpayers (e.g., allowing tax evasion, avoiding penalties, or expediting processes). Respondents rate this likelihood on a scale from 0 (not at all likely) to 100 (highly likely). For analysis purposes, we will invert the index so that a higher score indicates a lower probability of being bribed.
3. SAR's Capability: This metric comprises a self-reported outcome where respondents are asked to indicate their perception of the SAR's capability in collecting the amounts owed by individuals with tax obligations. Possible responses include "Not capable at all", "Slightly capable", "Moderately capable", "Capable" and "Highly capable". This outcome is incorporated for capturing mechanisms. We want to understand if, thanks to the treatments, respondents are more willing to pay taxes because now they trust the institution responsible for collecting them.
Considering that the first two outcomes have the same objective, which is to analyze the impact on citizens' perceptions of the tax authority, we are going to combine the first two in different indexes that allow us to reflect the change in the perceptions of individuals being treated.
The second group of outcomes, on the other side, is the group tax morale and proxies of willingness to pay or evade taxes outcomes, which includes:
1. Willingness to Bribe SAR Agent: This outcome evaluates respondents' agreement with the statement: "I would be willing to bribe an SAR official to avoid paying the taxes I owe." Respondents rate their level of agreement on a scale from 0 (completely disagree) to 10 (completely agree). For analysis purposes, we will invert the index so that a higher score reflects a lower willingness to engage in bribery.
2. Discount Offer Rejected: This measure presents respondents with a scenario in which a store owner offers a 10% discount in exchange for not providing a receipt, invoice, or proof of purchase during a shopping transaction. Respondents indicate whether they would accept or reject this discount (accepting the discount implies being willing to evade taxes). The outcome will be equal to 1 if the respondent says that they will not accept the offer.
3. No Lie Dice Game: This binary outcome originates from an implemented Dice Game (see below in the Experimental Design Section) and indicates whether an individual provided truthful information in their self-report regarding the outcome of the dice roll.
Considering that all these outcomes have the same objective, which is to analyze the impact on citizens' willingness to pay taxes and on tax morale outcomes, we are going to be combining them in different indexes that allow us to reflect the change in the willingness to pay or in the tax morale of the individuals.
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After
The set of primary outcomes covers those related with the beliefs and the perceptions of the respondents on the tax authority and corruption in general. These outcomes include:
1. Perception of Corruption of the SAR: This metric comprises a self-reported outcome in which respondents’ rate, on a scale from 0 (not likely at all) to 10 (very likely), their perception of the likelihood of SAR officials participating in acts of corruption. We will also study the difference between this variable and the (pre-treatment) perceptions of corruption of the public administration in general (explained in the Experiment Design section).
2. Probability that a SAR Agent will Accept a Bribe: This metric comprises respondents' beliefs regarding the probability that a SAR official might request gifts or money in exchange for resolving or preventing tax-related issues for taxpayers (e.g., allowing tax evasion, avoiding penalties, or expediting processes). Respondents rate this likelihood on a scale from 0 (not likely at all) to 10 (very likely).
3. Citizens’ Perception of Their Fellow Citizen’s Corruption: This metric comprises a self-reported outcome in which respondents’ rate, on a scale from 0 (not likely at all) to 10 (very likely), their perception of that their fellow citizens (in their city of residence) might be involved in acts of corruption. We will also study the difference between this variable and the (pre-treatment) perceptions of corruption of Hondurans in general (explained in the Experiment Design section).
4. SAR's Capability: This metric comprises respondent’s assessment of SAR's capability in collecting the amounts owed by individuals with tax obligations on a scale ranging from "Not capable at all” to "Highly capable". This outcome intends to capture potential mechanisms underlying treatment effects on perceptions.
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Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
The primary goal is to identify effective communication strategies to enhance tax morale within the context of the tax administration in Honduras. Data will be collected through an online survey. Participants will be selected randomly from the general population of Honduras and will be assigned to different communication treatments (explained with more detail in the Intervention section):
1. Control: A neutral message providing information about the role of the Honduran tax authorities.
2. "Perception" Treatment: A message emphasizing the role of the Honduran tax authorities and highlighting the low corruption perceptions of the Honduras tax authorities (based on factual data from a previous regional survey).
3. "Purge" Treatment: A message emphasizing the role of the Honduran tax authorities and highlighting the government's efforts to combat existing corruption (based on a real purge conducted in recent years).
4. "Purge" + "Perception" treatment ("combined" treatment): A combined message in which respondents are going to receive the information from the "perception" treatment first, followed by the "purge" treatment information.
The outcomes of interest include, first, a set of outcomes regarding the perceptions of the tax authority; and second, a set of self-reported outcomes regarding tax morale and proxies of willingness to pay or evade taxes (presented in the Primary Outcomes Section). We will also measure actual tax payment behavior through a Dice Game in which participants have the opportunity to win a prize. This game involves rolling a virtual die which produces a random number. Participants then report this number, and in return, they receive a certain number of tickets based on the reported value. The more tickets they accumulate, the better their chances of winning. Participants also could lie, but we will tell them that if someone is found to have reported the wrong number, they will receive only one ticket for the extra prize draw, regardless of the number they originally reported (although at the end of the day will not penalize those who did not tell the truth). Lying improves chances of winning of the respondents but harms the other participants (we consider this a proxy to the willingness of paying or evading taxes). The dice that we are going to be rolling will be unbalanced, with the idea that in most cases the number shown is one (1).
The hypotheses of this experiment are the following:
1. "Perception" vs. control Hypothesis: Changing individuals' beliefs about corruption by emphasizing lower corruption levels (Perception) will positively affect tax morale or willingness to pay and will positively affect perceptions of the Honduras tax authority compared to a neutral message (Control), assuming that individuals believe the information provided in the "perception" treatment.
2. "Purge" vs. control Hypothesis: Communicating government efforts to combat corruption (Purge) will positively affect tax morale or willingness to pay and will positively affect perceptions of the Honduras tax authority compared to a neutral message (Control). However, as a recent literature showed, it might backfire based on individuals' initial beliefs about corruption (since the purge treatment may reinforce their initial negative perception, Cheeseman and Peiffer, 2022). We thus consider this as a plausible outcome, which would affect also the subsequent hypotheses.
3. "Combined" vs. control Hypothesis: Combining both strategies (Combined), changing beliefs about corruption first and emphasizing government actions, will positively affect tax morale or willingness to pay and will positively affect perceptions of the Honduras tax authority compared to a neutral message (Control). The "combined" effect, however, can backfire if the "purge" treatment is making the problem of corruption more prominent (see Cheeseman and Peiffer, 2022).
4. "Perception" vs. "combined" Hypothesis: Changing perceptions about corruption first will make subsequent messages about government actions (Combined) more effective compared to just changing perceptions (Perception). The "combined" effect, however, can backfire if the "purge" treatment is making the problem of corruption more prominent (see Cheeseman and Peiffer, 2022). In that case, "perception" would be more effective than "combined".
5. "Combined" vs. "purge" Hypothesis: The combined message strategy (Combined) will be more effective than emphasizing government actions alone (Purge).
6. "Perception" vs. "purge" Hypothesis: Changing perceptions about corruption (Perception) will be more effective compared to emphasizing government actions (Purge), assuming that perceptions of transparency of the public administration play a significant role (Cheeseman and Peiffer, 2022) and that individuals believe the information provided in the "perception" treatment.
Given that we consider that there may be heterogeneous effects according to the initial beliefs of corruption of the individuals, we are going to be including pre-treatment transparency variables in order to verify if, for example, having high initial beliefs of corruption can trigger backfire in the "purge" treatment (and, consequently, in the "combined" treatment). One of the variables that we will add for the heterogeneity analysis is the transparency of the general government, which is a metric in which respondents rate, on a scale from 0 (completely lacking transparency) to 10 (very transparent), their perception of the transparency of the public administration in general. This variable will also serve as a control when analyzing the effect of the treatments on our main outcomes as well as to analyze the difference between pre- and post-treatment perceptions of transparency. This possibility arises based on the finding of Cheeseman and Peiffer (2022).
Also, we will ask how much respondents trust, on a scale from 0 (completely unreliable) to 10 (very trustful), in Church, in Congress, in the Executive Branch and in the police. In addition, combining these confidence indexes, or combining them with the transparency of the general government, we will be building different pre-treatment confidence measures that we will use in the analysis of our main outcomes.
Finally, we will include an attention check in our survey, and we will keep only those individuals who have passed it. Another series of baseline characteristics is also going to be collected, such as the age of the respondents, their sex, their ideology, the region in which they live or their education level.
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After
The primary goal is to identify how the different information treatments impact subject’s perceptions of corruption of the tax administration in Honduras, the potentially subsequent willingness to evade taxes and related outcomes. Data will be collected through an online survey. Participants will be selected randomly from the general population of Honduras (with internet access) and will be assigned to different communication treatments (explained in the Intervention section):
1. Control.
2. "Perception" Treatment.
3. "Purge" Treatment.
4. "Purge" + "perception" treatment ("combined" treatment).
The primary outcomes include a set of self-reported outcomes regarding the beliefs and perceptions of the tax authority (presented in the Primary Outcomes Section). The secondary outcomes are related to self-reported measures of willingness to evade taxes, and other outcomes regarding tax morale and honest behavior in a dice game (presented in the Secondary Outcomes Section). Specifically, the dice game involves rolling a virtual die which produces a random number. Participants then report this number, and in return, they receive a certain number of tickets for a specific lottery based on the reported value. The more tickets they accumulate, the better their chances of winning. Participants can lie to get more tickets in the game. The virtual dice will be unbalanced towards 1 to maximize the incentive to untruthfully report a number in this game.
The hypotheses of this experiment are the following:
1. "Perception" vs. control Hypothesis: Changing individuals' beliefs about corruption by emphasizing lower corruption levels ("perception") will positively affect perceptions of the Honduras tax authority compared to a neutral message (control), assuming that individuals believe the information provided in this treatment arm.
2. "Purge" vs. control Hypothesis: Communicating government efforts to combat corruption ("purge") will positively affect perceptions of the Honduras tax authority compared to a neutral message (control). However, as a recent literature highlights, such messages may backfire depending on individuals' initial beliefs about corruption - specifically, the purge treatment may reinforce an initial negative perception of the tax authority (Cheeseman and Peiffer, 2022). We will explore this heterogeneity for this and other treatment arms.
3. "Combined" vs. control Hypothesis: Combining both strategies ("combined") implies changing beliefs about corruption first (with the "perception" treatment) and emphasizing government actions next (with the "purge" treatment), and this sequence could positively affect perceptions of the Honduras tax authority compared to a neutral message (control). Its effect could be higher than the combined effect of treatments separately if it compensates for a potential backfire of the "purge" treatment. The "combined" effect, however, can backfire if the "purge" treatment makes the problem of corruption too salient (see Cheeseman and Peiffer, 2022).
4. "Combined" vs. "purge” Hypothesis: The combined message strategy ("combined") will be more effective than emphasizing government actions alone ("purge") because it could partially offset the potential backfire effects of "purge" alone.
6. "Perception" vs. "purge" Hypothesis: Changing perceptions about corruption ("perception") will be more effective compared to emphasizing government actions ("purge"), assuming that perceptions of corruption of the public administration play a significant role (Cheeseman and Peiffer, 2022) and that individuals believe the information provided in the "perception" treatment.
Our hypothesis implies that there may be heterogeneous effects according to individuals’ initial beliefs about corruption. We will study treatment heterogeneity along this dimension, for instance by studying whether high initial beliefs corruption perceptions trigger a backfire in the "purge" treatment (and, consequently, in the "combined" treatment). The main variable for heterogeneity is the respondents’ pre-treatment perception of government agents’ corruption, which will be used for subgroups analysis and as a control in regressions. At the same time, to observe whether the perceptions of corruption of the city's inhabitants changed, we will include a pre-treatment question that asks about the pre-treatment perceptions of Hondurans in general, which will also to serve as control in this case. As an alternative, we will use an index of trust in institutions from pre-treatment questions on trust in the Church, in Congress, in the Executive Branch and in the police.
We will collect a series of baseline characteristics, such as the age of the respondents, their sex, their ideology, the region in which they live and their education level. The firm in charge of the survey includes checks for attention and identifies outliers in the time spent on the questionnaire.
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Randomization Method
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Before
The participants will first answer a baseline survey and then will be randomly assigned to a treatment arm. We are going to randomize at the individual level to our four different treatment arms. The survey software will be in charge of randomizing the individuals into the treatment arms.
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After
The participants will first answer a baseline survey and then will be randomly assigned to a treatment arm. We will randomize at the individual level to our four different treatment arms. The survey software will be in charge of randomizing the individuals into the treatment arms.
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Secondary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
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After
Accept VAT Evasion, Crosswise Measure of Willingness to Evade Taxes, Lie in Dice Game.
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Secondary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Before
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After
Our secondary outcomes will be the ones related self-reported measures of willingness to evade taxes, and other outcomes regarding tax morale and honest behavior in a dice game, which include:
1. Accept VAT Evasion: This measure presents respondents with a scenario in which a store owner offers a 10% discount in exchange for a sale without the VAT included during a shopping transaction. Respondents indicate whether they would accept or reject this discount (accepting the discount implies being willing to evade the corresponding tax).
2. Crosswise Measure of Willingness to Evade Taxes: Self-reported measures of willingness to evade tax can be biased (for instance, because of a reluctance to declare illegal activity, or because of social desirability bias of respondents). We thus employ a Crosswise measure of this willingness to evade taxes. As in a simple list experiment, we ask respondents to report how many of two statements are true in their case. One of these questions is whether the respondent is willing to evade taxes. The second non-sensitive question asks if the respondent’s mother was born on November or December, highlighting that the research team does not have information on this matter and this that the response privacy is guaranteed. The population distribution of the second question’s probability is known, so that following Jann (2012) we can obtain unbiased estimates of the effect of the treatment on the stated willingness to evade taxes.
3. Lie in Dice Game: This binary outcome originates from an implementation of a dice game (see below in the Experimental Design Section) and indicates whether an individual provided non truthful information in their self-report regarding the outcome of a virtual dice roll.
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