Strategic misreporting on tax evasion: Uncovering social desirability bias through integrated list-vignette experiments

This study combines list experiments with vignette-based norm priming to examine how normative expectations shape social desirability bias in tax evasion reporting across three European countries. A total of 6,915 respondents in Latvia, Italy, and Denmark were randomly assigned to receive country-specific tax morale information via a vignette prior to competing a list experiment and direct question on undeclared work. While the list experiment did not yield conclusive evidence of social desirability bias, evidence of strategic respondent error emerged through systematic inconsistencies between undeclared work lists and placebo lists. Vignette exposure did not alter aggregate prevalence estimates but reduced the incidence of inconsistent response patterns, particularly cases in which respondents reported zero items in the sensitive list while admitting undeclared work in the direct question, suggesting that normative information affects how disclosure is calibrated across formats. The findings indicate that social desirability bias in tax evasion surveys is context-dependent, and highlight the limitations relying solely on indirect measurement techniques to assess sensitive behaviors.