IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejpol/v18y2026i2p181-211.html

Tax Compliance in the Rental Housing Market: Evidence from a Field Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Essi Eerola
  • Tuomas Kosonen
  • Kaisa Kotakorpi
  • Teemu Lyytikäinen

Abstract

We study rental income tax compliance using novel third-party information and a large-scale randomized field experiment. The third-party information combines register data on the ownership and occupancy of apartments. The RCT used this new third-party information in the targeting and design of experimental treatments, and increased the propensity to report rental income and the amount of reported rental income net of expenses. Our research design also allows us to identify members of ownership networks and analyze spillover effects in tax enforcement between them. We find positive reporting spillovers. We do not find evidence of real effects on asset market transactions.

Suggested Citation

  • Essi Eerola & Tuomas Kosonen & Kaisa Kotakorpi & Teemu Lyytikäinen, 2026. "Tax Compliance in the Rental Housing Market: Evidence from a Field Experiment," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 181-211, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:18:y:2026:i:2:p:181-211
    DOI: 10.1257/pol.20230414
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20230414
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E237521V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/24997
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/24998
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/pol.20230414?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Kaisa Kotakorpiⓡ & Tuomas Nurminenⓡ & Topi Miettinen ⓡ & Satu Metsälampiⓡ & Kaisa Kotakorpi, 2022. "Bearing the Burden - Implications of Tax Reporting Institutions and Image Concerns on Evasion and Incidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 9791, CESifo.
    3. Kotakorpi, Kaisa & Nurminen, Tuomas & Miettinen, Topi & Metsälampi, Satu, 2024. "Bearing the burden — Implications of tax reporting institutions on evasion and incidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 81-134.
    4. Antinyan, Armenak & Asatryan, Zareh, 2019. "Nudging for tax compliance: A meta-analysis," ZEW Discussion Papers 19-055, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    5. Jana Cahlikova & Lubomir Cingl & Katerina Chadimova & Miroslav Zajicek, 2021. "Carrots, Sticks, or Simplicity? Field Evidence on What Makes People Pay TV Fees," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2021-12, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    6. Blesse, Sebastian, 2021. "Are your tax problems an opportunity not to pay taxes? Evidence from a randomized survey experiment," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-040, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    7. Bruns, Christoffer & Fochmann, Martin & Mohr, Peter N.C. & Torgler, Benno, 2025. "Multidimensional tax compliance attitude," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    8. Jarkko Harju & Kaisa Kotakorpi & Tuomas Matikka & Annika Nivala, 2025. "Tax enforcement and firm performance: real and reporting responses to risk-based tax audits," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 32(6), pages 1734-1776, December.
    9. Kaisa Kotakorpi & Tuomas Nurminen & Topi Miettinen & Satu Metsälampi, 2022. "Bearing the burden – Implications of tax reporting institutions and image concerns on evasion and incidence," Working Papers 3, Finnish Centre of Excellence in Tax Systems Research.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance
    • K34 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Tax Law
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets

    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:aea:aejpol:v:18:y:2026:i:2:p:181-211. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.