The behavioralist as tax collector: Using natural field experiments to enhance tax compliance
Abstract
This paper presents results from two large-scale natural field experiments that tested the effect of social norm messages on tax compliance. Using administrative data from > 200,000 individuals in the United Kingdom, we show that including social norm messages in standard reminder letters increases payment rates for overdue tax . This result offers a rare example of social norm messages affecting tax compliance behavior in a real world setting. We find no evidence that loss framing is more effective than gain framing. Descriptive norms appear to be more effective than injunctive norms. Messages referring to public services or financial information also significantly increased payment rates. The field experiments accelerated the collection of tax revenue at little cost.
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Conformist behavioural responses to majority information have been found for paying taxes, corrupt behaviour, and readiness to steal.
“The same type of conformist behavioural response has been found with respect to majority information about various socially highly relevant actions, for instance, paying taxes (Hallsworth et al. [2017]), as well as corrupt behaviour (Köbis et al. [2015]) and even readiness to steal (Cialdini et al. [2006]).”
From Science Communication and the Problematic Impact of Descriptive Norms (2023) · cites this paper as Hallsworth et al. [2017]
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List, J. A., Bulte, E., & Shogren, J. F. (2002) · Public Choice · doi:10.1023/a:1014947110729 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
Self-citationHypothetical-actual bid calibration of a multigood auction
(1998) · Journal of International Crisis and Risk Communication Research · doi:10.1016/s0165-1765(98)00117-7 · Cited by 27 · see citing works
Testing neoclassical competitive market theory in the field
List, J. A. (2002) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.202602999 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Self-citationTax Compliance and Enforcement
Slemrod, J. (2017) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190619725.003.0006 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
Conspiracies and secret price discounts in the marketplace: Evidence from field experimentsPreprint
List John, A., & Price Michael, K. (2005) · RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Changing Behavior Beyond the Here and NowPreprint
Rogers, T., & Frey, E. (2014) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.2410465 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
The Making of Homo Honoratus: From Omission to Commission
Hallsworth, M., List, J. A., Metcalfe, R., & Vlaev, I. (2015) · National Bureau of Economic Research · doi:10.3386/w21210 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
Self-citationList, J. A. (2006) · Scandinavian Journal of Economics · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9442.2006.00438.x · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Self-citationMoberly, T. (2014) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.g5346 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Gelfand, M. J., Jackson, J. C., Pan, X., Nau, D., Pieper, D., Denison, E., Dagher, M., Van Lange, P. A. M., Chiu, C.-Y., & Wang, M. (2021) · The Lancet Planetary Health · doi:10.1016/s2542-5196(20)30301-6 · Cited by 526 · see citing works
Normative foundations of human cooperation
Fehr, E., & Schurtenberger, I. (2018) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-018-0385-5 · Cited by 434 · see citing works
The promise and the peril of using social influence to reverse harmful traditions
Efferson, C., Vogt, S., & Fehr, E. (2019) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-019-0768-2 · Cited by 110 · see citing works
Walsh, J., Vaida, N., Coman, A., & Fiske, S. T. (2022) · Psychological Science in the Public Interest · doi:10.1177/15291006231161337 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
“For example, governments nudge people to pay their taxes as a compliment to traditional (more expensive) law-enforcement methods (Hallsworth et al., 2017).”
BackgroundScience Communication and the Problematic Impact of Descriptive Norms
Peters, U. (2023) · The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science · doi:10.1086/715001 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
- Authors
- Hallsworth, M., List, J. A., Metcalfe, R. D., & Vlaev, I.
- Affiliations
- The Behavioural Insights Team (GB)
- University of Chicago (US)
- University of Warwick (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Metcalfe, Robert D.
- Venue
- Journal of Public Economics
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2017-04
- Volume
- 148
- Pages
- 14-31
- ISSN
- 0047-2727 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2148440443
- Cited by
- 764
- References
- 134
- Citations by year
- 2026: 67 · 2025: 82 · 2024: 67 · 2023: 83 · 2022: 101 · 2021: 94 · 2020: 91 · 2019: 66 · 2018: 58 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 123.31
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Public Economics (publishedVersion)
- Warwick Research Archive Portal (University of Warwick) (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Taxation and Compliance Studies
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Keywords
- tax compliance, social norms, normative messages, loss framing, gain framing, descriptive norms, injunctive norms, behavioral interventions, tax collection
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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