IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jau/wpaper/2022-09.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Family affairs or Government's duty? The tax morality of a mobile society

Author

Listed:
  • Rocco Caferra

    (Department of Economics, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain and Department of Economics, Management and Business Law, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Italy)

  • Alessandro Cascavilla

    (Department of Economics, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain and Department of Economics, Management and Business Law, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Italy)

  • Andrea Morone

    (Department of Economics, Management and Business Law, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Italy)

Abstract

This paper aims to shed lights on the relationship between intergenerational mobility and tax morale. We show that higher intergenerational mobility increases tax morale among European countries. This linkage is stronger and significant in countries where there is a commitment of the Government in guaranteeing more opportunities to citizens regardless of their familiar starting conditions (more defamiliarized countries). We further show that the positive linkage between intergenerational mobility and tax morale is significant only for individuals claiming for independence from their family context (i.e., those having less family ties). The results are quite robust across different estimation strategies, including an instrumental-variables methodology. This evidence remarks the importance to foster intergenerational mobility to build a more tax-compliant society.

Suggested Citation

  • Rocco Caferra & Alessandro Cascavilla & Andrea Morone, 2022. "Family affairs or Government's duty? The tax morality of a mobile society," Working Papers 2022/09, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
  • Handle: RePEc:jau:wpaper:2022/09
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.doctreballeco.uji.es/wpficheros/Caferra_et_al_09_2022.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marè, Mauro & Motroni, Antonello & Porcelli, Francesco, 2020. "How family ties affect trust, tax morale and underground economy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 235-252.
    2. Halla Martin, 2012. "Tax Morale and Compliance Behavior: First Evidence on a Causal Link," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-27, April.
    3. Alberto Alesina & Paola Giuliano, 2010. "The power of the family," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 93-125, June.
    4. Alexi Gugushvili, 2019. "A multilevel analysis of perceived intergenerational mobility and welfare state preferences," International Journal of Social Welfare, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(1), pages 16-30, January.
    5. Alberto Alesina & Stefanie Stantcheva & Edoardo Teso, 2018. "Intergenerational Mobility and Preferences for Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(2), pages 521-554, February.
    6. Alberto Alesina & Dani Rodrik, 1994. "Distributive Politics and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 465-490.
    7. Ganzeboom, H.B.G. & de Graaf, P.M. & Treiman, D.J. & de Leeuw, J., 1992. "A standard international socio-economic index of occupational status," WORC Paper 92.01.001/1, Tilburg University, Work and Organization Research Centre.
    8. Belmonte, Alessandro & Dell'Anno, Roberto & Teobaldelli, Désirée, 2018. "Tax morale, aversion to ethnic diversity, and decentralization," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 204-223.
    9. Tim Büthe & Helen V. Milner, 2008. "The Politics of Foreign Direct Investment into Developing Countries: Increasing FDI through International Trade Agreements?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(4), pages 741-762, October.
    10. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Patrick Kline & Emmanuel Saez, 2014. "Where is the land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1553-1623.
    11. Alm, James & Torgler, Benno, 2006. "Culture differences and tax morale in the United States and in Europe," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 224-246, April.
    12. Doerrenberg, Philipp, 2015. "Does the use of tax revenue matter for tax compliance behavior?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 30-34.
    13. Colin C. Williams & Besnik Krasniqi, 2017. "Evaluating the individual- and country-level variations in tax morale," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 44(5), pages 816-832, October.
    14. Esping-Andersen, Gosta, 1999. "Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198742005, Decembrie.
    15. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Lawrence F. Katz, 2016. "The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(4), pages 855-902, April.
    16. Bourguignon, Francois, 1981. "Pareto Superiority of Unegalitarian Equilibria in Stiglitz' Model of Wealth Distribution with Convex Saving Function," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1469-1475, November.
    17. Kelly Musick & Robert Mare, 2004. "Family structure, intergenerational mobility, and the reproduction of poverty: Evidence for increasing polarization?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 41(4), pages 629-648, November.
    18. Lago-Peñas, Ignacio & Lago-Peñas, Santiago, 2010. "The determinants of tax morale in comparative perspective: Evidence from European countries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 441-453, December.
    19. Blaufus, Kay & Braune, Matthias & Hundsdoerfer, Jochen & Jacob, Martin, 2015. "Self-serving bias and tax morale," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 91-93.
    20. Piketty, Thomas, 2000. "Theories of persistent inequality and intergenerational mobility," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 8, pages 429-476, Elsevier.
    21. Torgler, Benno, 2005. "Tax morale and direct democracy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 525-531, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cascavilla, Alessandro, 2022. "Does climate change concern alter tax morale preferences? Evidence from an Italian survey," MPRA Paper 113039, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Ciziceno, Marco & Pizzuto, Pietro, 2022. "Life satisfaction and tax morale: The role of trust in government and cultural orientation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    3. Ke Meng & Shouhao Li, 2023. "Welfare Regimes and Intergenerational Social Mobility: An Institutional Explanation of the Great Gatsby Curve," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 355-375, January.
    4. Axel Möhlmann, 2014. "Persistence or Convergence? The East-West Tax-Morale Gap in Germany," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 70(1), pages 3-30, March.
    5. Belmonte, Alessandro & Dell'Anno, Roberto & Teobaldelli, Désirée, 2018. "Tax morale, aversion to ethnic diversity, and decentralization," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 204-223.
    6. Alessandro Belmonte & Désirée Teobaldelli & Davide Ticchi, 2023. "Tax morale, fiscal capacity, and war," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 94(2), pages 445-474, June.
    7. Filippin, Antonio & Fiorio, Carlo V. & Viviano, Eliana, 2013. "The effect of tax enforcement on tax morale," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 320-331.
    8. Mauro Marè & Antonello Motroni & Francesco Porcelli, 2015. "Family Ties and Underground Economy," Working papers 16, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    9. Colin C. Williams, 2014. "Confronting the Shadow Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15370.
    10. Marè, Mauro & Motroni, Antonello & Porcelli, Francesco, 2020. "How family ties affect trust, tax morale and underground economy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 235-252.
    11. Alvaro Forteza & Cecilia Noboa, 2019. "Perceptions of institutional quality and justification of tax evasion," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 30(4), pages 367-382, December.
    12. David Rodriguez-Justicia & Bernd Theilen, 2023. "Ideological alignment, public sector size and tax morale: empirical evidence from OECD economies," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, December.
    13. Neidhöfer, Guido & Serrano, Joaquín & Gasparini, Leonardo, 2018. "Educational inequality and intergenerational mobility in Latin America: A new database," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 329-349.
    14. Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Ross Levine, 2009. "Finance and Inequality: Theory and Evidence," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 287-318, November.
    15. Guido Neidhöfer, 2019. "Intergenerational mobility and the rise and fall of inequality: Lessons from Latin America," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(4), pages 499-520, December.
    16. Ioana Alexandra Horodnic & Colin C. Williams, 2016. "An evaluation of the shadow economy in Baltic states: a tax morale perspective," International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 28(2/3), pages 339-358.
    17. Barton, Jared & Pan, Xiaofei, 2022. "Movin’ on up? A survey experiment on mobility enhancing policies," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    18. Alberto Alesina & Sebastian Hohmann & Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2021. "Intergenerational Mobility in Africa," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(1), pages 1-35, January.
    19. Emmanuelle Deglaire & Peter Daly & Fabrice Lec, 2021. "Exposure to tax dilemmas deteriorate individuals' self-declared tax morale," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 363-397, December.
    20. Mutascu, Mihai, 2011. "Compulsory voting and tax revenues," MPRA Paper 33987, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tax Evasion and Avoidance; Job; Occupational; and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jau:wpaper:2022/09. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: María Aurora Garcia Gallego (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ueujies.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.