Zhang Nan, Andrighetto Giulia, Ottone Stefania, Ponzano Ferruccio, Steinmo Sven
Department of Social and Political Sciences, European University Institute, San Domenico di Fiesole (FI), Italy.
Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology, National Research Council, Rome, Italy.
PLoS One. 2016 Feb 26;11(2):e0150277. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0150277. eCollection 2016.
As shown by the recent crisis, tax evasion poses a significant problem for countries such as Greece, Spain and Italy. While these societies certainly possess weaker fiscal institutions as compared to other EU members, might broader cultural differences between northern and southern Europe also help to explain citizens' (un)willingness to pay their taxes? To address this question, we conduct laboratory experiments in the UK and Italy, two countries which straddle this North-South divide. Our design allows us to examine citizens' willingness to contribute to public goods via taxes while holding institutions constant. We report a surprising result: when faced with identical tax institutions, redistribution rules and audit probabilities, Italian participants are significantly more likely to comply than Britons. Overall, our findings cast doubt upon "culturalist" arguments that would attribute cross-country differences in tax compliance to the lack of morality amongst southern European taxpayers.
正如最近的危机所显示的那样，逃税给希腊、西班牙和意大利等国带来了重大问题。虽然与其他欧盟成员国相比，这些国家的财政制度确实较为薄弱，但北欧和南欧之间更广泛的文化差异是否也有助于解释公民纳税（或不纳税）的意愿呢？为了解决这个问题，我们在英国和意大利这两个跨越南北分界线的国家进行了实验室实验。我们的设计使我们能够在制度不变的情况下，研究公民通过纳税为公共物品做出贡献的意愿。我们报告了一个惊人的结果：当面对相同的税收制度、再分配规则和审计概率时，意大利参与者比英国参与者更有可能遵守规定。总体而言，我们的研究结果对“文化主义”观点提出了质疑，这种观点将各国在纳税遵从方面的差异归因于南欧纳税人缺乏道德。
