The effects of informing tax payers about individual taxes and government expenditure on transparency perception, trust in the government, tax compliance and voting behavior

Last registered on May 07, 2020

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The effects of informing tax payers about individual taxes and government expenditure on transparency perception, trust in the government, tax compliance and voting behavior
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0005593
Initial registration date
March 26, 2020

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
March 27, 2020, 10:56 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
May 07, 2020, 11:03 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Experimental Policy Unit - Chilean Budget Office

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Experimental Policy Unit - Chilean Budget Office
PI Affiliation
Ministerio de Hacienda - Ministry of Finance
PI Affiliation
Servicio de Impuestos Internos - Chilean Tax Service
PI Affiliation
Servicio de Impuestos Internos - Chilean Tax Service
PI Affiliation
Laboratorio de Gobierno
PI Affiliation
University of Warwick

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2020-04-20
End date
2020-12-15
Secondary IDs
Abstract
This trial will investigate the potential effects of an information campaign providing individual information on tax payment, government national expenditure (what expenditure areas (education, health, etc.) is tax money spent on) and on national and regional use of government funds (what concrete policies the government spends on) to a large sample of chilean tax payers. A final treatment consists in allowing taxpayers to provide feedback to government regarding how taxpayer resources should be spent by the government. Using a randomized controlled trial, we will evaluate the impact of these different treatments in order to asses which one is most effective to increase government transparency perception and trust in the government. Finally, we will test the effects of these interventions on peoples actual behavior: tax compliance and voting participation.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Carreño, Alvaro M. et al. 2020. "The effects of informing tax payers about individual taxes and government expenditure on transparency perception, trust in the government, tax compliance and voting behavior." AEA RCT Registry. May 07. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.5593-1.3
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention consists in an information campaign to tax payers on individual tax payment and government expenditure. The trail will test four different treatments that combine into six experimental arms.

Treatments:
Treatment 1: Tax information + expenditure distribution. People are reminded how much they pay individually in VAT and income tax. They are also informed how the tax money they contribute to the government is spent. The expenditure information is provided graphically, showing different categories of expenditure.
Treatment 2: Tax information + national use of government expenditure. Instead of being informed on the distribution of expenditure, people are shown a variety of concrete policies the government has spent tax resources on.
Treatment 3: Tax information + regional use of government expenditure. This treatment is the same as treatment 2, only that it provides regional as opposed to national information on use of tax resources.
Treatment 4: Tax payer feedback to government. People are given the opportunity to provide feedback to the government, regarding what they think the government should spend money on. This treatment is added to treatment one, two and three for half of the treated sample.

Experimental Arm:
Arm 1: Treatment 1
Arm 2: Treatment 2
Arm 3: Treatment 3
Arm 4: Treatment 1 + 4
Arm 5: Treatment 2 + 4
Arm 6: Treatment 3 + 4
Control Group
Intervention Start Date
2020-04-20
Intervention End Date
2020-05-09

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Perception of Transparency and Trust in the Government
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Tax Compliance, Voting Participation
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The six experimental arms previously described and a control group will be compared statistically in order to measure causal effects on outcomes of interest.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Stratified randomization done in an office by a computer. We will use the stata command randtreat and stratify by previos income, tax status (people that must pay taxes and those that do not need to pay taxes this year) and tax risk categories (tax service estimation of tax payers risk to not comply with tax duty).
Randomization Unit
Individual randomization.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Individual randomization. No Clusters.
Sample size: planned number of observations
160,000 tax payers.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Arm 1: 10.000 tax payers.
Arm 2: 10.000 tax payers.
Arm 3: 10.000 tax payers.
Arm 4: 10.000 tax payers.
Arm 5: 10.000 tax payers.
Arm 6: 10.000 tax payers.
Control: 100.000 tax payers.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Depending on the different possible comparisons and assumptions on treatment compliance and experiments attrition minimum detectable effect ranges between 0.11 and 0.01 standard deviations.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Pre-analysis Plan

MD5: 654388f4ca2ba8a4a0234343b079793d

SHA1: dcdd2f630208b42899ac50f0cbe9054ff0e62747

Uploaded At: May 06, 2020

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials