Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/215334 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 12938
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We study the impact of media bias on tax compliance. Through a framed laboratory experiment, we assess how the exposure to biased news about government action affects compliance in a repeated taxation game. Subjects treated with positive news are significantly more compliant than the control group. The exposure to negative news, instead, does not prompt any significant reaction in respect to the neutral condition, suggesting that participants perceive the media negativity bias in the selection and tonality of news as the norm rather than the exception. Overall, our results suggest that biased news act as a constant source of psychological priming and play a vital role in taxpayers' compliance decisions.
Subjects: 
tax compliance
media bias
taxation game
laboratory experiment
JEL: 
C91
D70
H26
H31
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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