Abstract
Governments are increasingly complementing traditional audit-based enforcement with consumer-targeted interventions that enlist citizens in monitoring tax compliance. Among these, consumer receipt lotteries—programs that reward shoppers with entry into prize draws for submitting verified sales invoices—aim to strengthen the enforcement chain by encouraging consumers to demand formal receipts. Yet rigorous evidence on their effectiveness and interaction with administrative enforcement remains limited. We conduct the first randomized field experiment of a consumer receipt lottery in the hospitality sector of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, where business eligibility for the lottery is randomly assigned and cross-randomized with priority-enforcement status within the tax authority. We additionally test whether the receipt lottery reinforces tax authority–driven enforcement in improving compliance outcomes. On the consumer side, we test messaging interventions that frame participation in the lottery as either helping the government enforce taxes (“auditor” framing) or ensuring that taxes they pay are properly transmitted (“taxpayer” framing), allowing us to identify how different enforcement narratives shape consumer engagement and compliance outcomes. We leverage administrative VAT data, firm and consumer surveys, and mystery-shopping audits to comprehensively examine both the direct and indirect effects of the intervention. Specifically, we assess the impact of the treatments on formal invoice issuance, reported revenues, and potential spillovers to non-participating firms, as well as changes in taxpayer–official interactions, rent-seeking behavior, tax morale, and perceptions of state capacity.