This paper begins by contrasting the caricatures "homo and femina economicus" with "homo and femina realitus". Against this backdrop, the paper considers three "apparently falsified" empirical predictions of the standard expected utility model of individual decision-making concerning...

Emotions have a strong impact on our everyday life, including our mental health, sleep pattern, overall well-being, and judgment and decision making. Our paper is the first study to show that incidental emotions, i.e., emotions not related to the actual choice problem, influence the compliance...

Although there is already a variety of papers analyzing tax evasion decisions, only little focus is put on tax evasion of gains and losses. As taxpayers can evade taxes by either underreporting their income or by overdeducting expenses, we study whether there is a significant difference if...

Using an economic bargaining game, we tested for the existence of two phenomena related to social norms, namely norm manipulation – the selection of an interpretation of the norm that best suits an individual – and norm evasion – the deliberate, private violation of a social norm. We found...

We experimentally analyze three anti-tax-evasion mechanisms: (1) prefilling of deductions in tax returns, (2) restricting tax evasion opportunities by either disallowing or (3) limiting the deductibility of expenditures. We find that prefilling compared to blank forms reduces tax evasion....

Tax authorities utilize the audit process, imposing penalties on tax evaders, as their primary means of enforcement. In recent years, a “service” paradigm, whereby tax authorities provide information about correct tax reporting to taxpayers, has shown the potential to further “encourage”...