Corruption and Tax Evasion with Competitive Bribes
Abstract
In this paper we consider a simple economy where self interested taxpayers may have incentives to evade taxes and to escape sanctions, by bribing public officials in charge for tax collection. The level of monitoring and the level of corruption are endogenously determined assuming that the price for corruption (bribe) sets at a value where expected rents in the public sector are completely dissipated in monitoring costs due to competition among public officials. In the proposed framework, larger fines for evasion will increase tax compliance with ambiguous effects on corruption while larger fine for corruption reduce corruption at the cost of reducing tax compliance. Interestingly, a utilitarian legislator will want to set maximal penalties. Intuitively, preventing corruption through fines is valuable to the planner since it reduces the amount of rent dissipation in the public sector at the cost of decreasing deterrence for the underlying offence (evasion). Finally the shadow value of deterrence is such that the level of public good provided in the economy is smaller than its first best.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy in its series CSEF Working Papers with number 112.Length:
Date of creation: 21 Dec 2003
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:sef:csefwp:112
Contact details of provider:
Postal: I-80126 Napoli
Phone: +39 081 - 675372
Fax: +39 081 - 675372
Email:
Web page: http://www.csef.it/
More information through EDIRC
Related research
Keywords:This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2004-01-08 (All new papers)
- NEP-MAC-2004-01-08 (Macroeconomics)
- NEP-POL-2004-01-08 (Positive Political Economics)
- NEP-PUB-2004-01-08 (Public Finance)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Mookherjee, Dilip & Png, I P L, 1995. "Corruptible Law Enforcers: How Should They Be Compensated?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(428), pages 145-59, January.
- A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell, 1999.
"The Economic Theory of Public Enforcement of Law,"
NBER Working Papers
6993, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Steven Shavell & A. Mitchell Polinsky, 2000. "The Economic Theory of Public Enforcement of Law," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(1), pages 45-76, March.
- Nahum D. Melumad & Dilip Mookherjee, 1989. "Delegation as Commitment: The Case of Income Tax Audits," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 20(2), pages 139-163, Summer.
- Stigler, George J, 1970.
"The Optimum Enforcement of Laws,"
Journal of Political Economy,
University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(3), pages 526-36, May-June.
- George J. Stigler, 1974. "The Optimum Enforcement of Laws," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 55-67 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Polinsky, A. Mitchell & Shavell, Steven, 2001.
"Corruption and optimal law enforcement,"
Journal of Public Economics,
Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 1-24, July.
- A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell, 1999. "Corruption and Optimal Law Enforcement," NBER Working Papers 6945, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Ira N. Gang & Amal Sanyal & Omkar Goswami, 1998.
"Corruption, Tax Evasion and the Laffer Curve,"
Departmental Working Papers
199604, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
- Sanyal, Amal & Gang, Ira N & Goswami, Omkar, 2000. " Corruption, Tax Evasion and the Laffer Curve," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 105(1-2), pages 61-78, October.
- Allingham, Michael G. & Sandmo, Agnar, 1972. "Income tax evasion: a theoretical analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3-4), pages 323-338, November.
- Chander, Parkash & Wilde, Louis, 1992. "Corruption in tax administration," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 333-349, December.
- Pranab Bardhan, 1997. "Corruption and Development: A Review of Issues," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 1320-1346, September.
- Bar-Gill, Oren & Harel, Alon, 2001.
"Crime Rates and Expected Sanctions: The Economics of Deterrence Revisited,"
The Journal of Legal Studies,
University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(2), pages 485-501, Part I Ju.
- Bar-Gill, O. & Harel, A., 2000. "Crime Rates and Expected Sanctions: The Economics of Deterrence Revisited," Papers 2000-14, Tel Aviv.
- Bar-Gill, O. & Harel, A., 2000. "Crime Rates and Expected Sanctions: The Economics of Deterrence Revisited," Papers 00-14, Tel Aviv.
- Mookherjee, Dilip & Png, I P L, 1992. "Monitoring vis-a-vis Investigation in Enforcement of Law," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 556-65, June.
- Hindriks, Jean & Keen, Michael & Muthoo, Abhinay, 1999.
"Corruption, extortion and evasion,"
Journal of Public Economics,
Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 395-430, December.
- Hindriks, J. & Keen, M. & Muthoo, A., 1998. "Corruption, Extortion and Evasion," Discussion Papers 9809, Exeter University, Department of Economics.
- Hindriks, J. & Keen, M. & Muthoo, A., 1996. "Corruption, Extortion and Evasion," Papers 179, Notre-Dame de la Paix, Sciences Economiques et Sociales.
- Jean Hindriks, Michael Keen and Abhinay Muthoo, . "Corruption, Extortion and Evasion," Economics Discussion Papers 470, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
- Andreoni, J. & Erard, B. & Feinstein, J., 1996.
"Tax Compliance,"
Working papers
9610r, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
- James Andreoni & Brian Erard & Jonathan Feinstein, 1998. "Tax Compliance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(2), pages 818-860, June.
- repec:att:wimass:8908 is not listed on IDEAS
- Garoupa, Nuno, 1997. " The Theory of Optimal Law Enforcement," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(3), pages 267-95, September.
- Isaac Ehrlich, 1996. "Crime, Punishment, and the Market for Offenses," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 43-67, Winter.
- Saha, Atanu & Poole, Graham, 2000. "The economics of crime and punishment: An analysis of optimal penalty," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 191-196, August.
- Besley, Timothy & McLaren, John, 1993. "Taxes and Bribery: The Role of Wage Incentives," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(416), pages 119-41, January.
- Polinsky, Mitchell & Shavell, Steven, 1979. "The Optimal Tradeoff between the Probability and Magnitude of Fines," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(5), pages 880-91, December.
- James Andreoni, 1991.
"Reasonable Doubt and the Optimal Magnitude of Fines: Should the Penalty Fit the Crime?,"
RAND Journal of Economics,
The RAND Corporation, vol. 22(3), pages 385-395, Autumn.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Djumashev, Ratbek, 2006. "Corrupt Bureaucracy and Growth," MPRA Paper 2082, University Library of Munich, Germany.
- Shah, Anwar, 2006. "Corruption and decentralized public governance," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3824, The World Bank.
- Antonio Acconcia, 2006. "Endogenous Corruption and Tax Evasion in a Dynamic Model," CSEF Working Papers 154, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy, revised 01 Nov 2006.
- Ratbek Dzhumashev, 2006. "Public Goods, Corruption And Growth???," Monash Economics Working Papers 15/06, Monash University, Department of Economics.
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sef:csefwp:112For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Lia Ambrosio).
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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

