Can Nudges Increase Take-up of the EITC? : Evidence from Multiple Field Experiments

Elizabeth Linos, Allen Prohofsky, Aparna Ramesh, Jesse Rothstein, Matt Unrath

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) distributes more than $60 billion to over 20 million low-income families annually. Nevertheless, an estimated one-fifth of eligible households do not claim it. We ran six pre-registered, large-scale field experiments to test whether "nudges" could increase EITC take-up (N=1million). Despite varying the content, design, messenger, and mode of our messages, we find no evidence that they affected households' likelihood of filing a tax return or claiming the credit. We conclude that even the most behaviorally informed low-touch outreach efforts cannot overcome the barriers faced by low-income households who do not file returns

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Year of publication:	November 2020
Authors:	Linos, Elizabeth
Other Persons:	Prohofsky, Allen (contributor) ; Ramesh, Aparna (contributor) ; Rothstein, Jesse (contributor) ; Unrath, Matt (contributor)
Institutions:	National Bureau of Economic Research (contributor)
Publisher:	2020: Cambridge, Mass : National Bureau of Economic Research
Subject:	Konsumentenverhalten \| Consumer behaviour \| Konsumentenrente \| Consumer surplus \| Kfz-Gewerbe \| Automotive services industry \| Verbraucherkredit \| Consumer credit

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