IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/restat/v104y2022i1p116-132.html

How Do Taxpayers Respond to Public Disclosure and Social Recognition Programs? Evidence from Pakistan

Author

Listed:
  • Joel Slemrod

    (University of Michigan)

  • Obeid Ur Rehman

    (Ryerson University)

  • Mazhar Waseem

    (University of Manchester)

Abstract

We examine two Pakistani programs to see if the public disclosure of tax information and social recognition of top taxpayers promotes tax compliance. Pakistan began revealing income tax paid by all taxpayers in 2012. Simultaneously, another program began recognizing and rewarding the top 100 tax- paying corporations, partnerships, self-employed individuals, and wage earners. We find that the public disclosure caused an increase of 9 log points and the social recognition program 17 log points in the tax payments of agents exposed to the program. Our results suggest that such programs can be important policy levers to mobilize additional resources.

Suggested Citation

  • Joel Slemrod & Obeid Ur Rehman & Mazhar Waseem, 2022. "How Do Taxpayers Respond to Public Disclosure and Social Recognition Programs? Evidence from Pakistan," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(1), pages 116-132, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:104:y:2022:i:1:p:116-132
    DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00929
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_00929
    Download Restriction: Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1162/rest_a_00929?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. López García, Ana Isabel & Berens, Sarah, 2025. "Taxing the wealthy in Haiti: Evidence from a conjoint experiment on property tax preferences," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    2. Etchart-Vincent, Nathalie & Ratto, Marisa & Taugourdeau, Emmanuelle, 2026. "Why should I comply with taxes if others don’t?: Social information and behavioral convergence: An experimental study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    3. Reck, Daniel & Slemrod, Joel & Vattø, Trine Engh, 2022. "Public disclosure of tax information: Compliance tool or social network?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    4. Kim, Seiyoun & Arora, Puneet, 2025. "Related examinations and tax compliance," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    5. Müller, Raphael & Spengel, Christoph & Vay, Heiko, 2020. "On the determinants and effects of corporate tax transparency: Review of an emerging literature," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-063, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. Bittschi, Benjamin & Dwenger, Nadja & Rincke, Johannes, 2021. "Water the flowers you want to grow? Evidence on private recognition and donor loyalty," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    7. Deininger, Klaus W. & Ali, Daniel Ayalew & Bukin, Eduard & Martyn, Andrii, 2024. "Reforming Land Valuation and Taxation in Ukraine : A Path towards greater Sustainability Fairness, and Transparency," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10998, The World Bank.
    8. Wang, Yiying & Cui, Dangdang, 2025. "Tax credit rating changes and the cost of debt financing: Evidence from China," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    9. Carina Neisser & Nils Wehrhöfer, 2025. "Unintended Effects of Transparency: The Consequences of Income Disclosure by Politicians," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 354, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    10. Chen, Gao & Qi, Yu & Liu, Feng & Xing, Fei, 2022. "Taxation officers’ grassroots work experience and tax performance: Evidence from China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    11. Shah, Jawad, 2026. "Using computerized information to enforce VAT: Evidence from Pakistan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    12. Mazhar Waseem, 2020. "Does Cutting the Tax Rate to Zero Induce Behavior Different from Other Tax Cuts? Evidence from Pakistan," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(3), pages 426-441, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies

    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:tpr:restat:v:104:y:2022:i:1:p:116-132. 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: The MIT Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    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.