Tax compliance across sociodemographic categories: Meta-analyses of survey studies in 111 countries

Author(s)
Eva Hofmann, Martin Voracek, Christine Bock, Erico Kirchler
Abstract

Tax compliance varies across sociodemographic categories. However, research on the relationships between compliance and age, sex, education as well as income level shows inconsistent results, both regarding the direction of the relationship and its size. The current meta-analyses target to merge findings in survey studies on age, sex, education, and income and estimate the strength of the impact on compliance by taking into account geographical regions. In four meta-analyses, comprising 459 samples (N = 614,286) from 111 countries published between 1958 and 2012, average estimated effect sizes were small, ranging from r = 0.12 for the relationship between compliance and age, r = 0.06 for sex, r = −0.02 for education to r = −0.04 for income. These effects are more pronounced in Western countries. It thus appears sociodemographic characteristics have little impact on compliance, but nevertheless should be controlled for in tax research.

Organisation(s)
Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, Department of Occupational, Economic and Social Psychology
External organisation(s)
Coventry University, Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (WU)
Journal
Journal of Economic Psychology
Volume
62
Pages
63-71
No. of pages
9
ISSN
0167-4870
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2017.06.005
Publication date
10-2017
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
501029 Economic psychology
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Economics and Econometrics, Applied Psychology, Sociology and Political Science
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/4b896600-72ca-41f5-b7ae-9fa3122b53d3