IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2509.24673.html

Tight Samurai Accountant

Author

Listed:
  • Deniz Kattwinkel
  • Justus Preusser

Abstract

This note applies tightness (Kattwinkel and Preusser (2025)) to the setting of Border and Sobel (1987, "Samurai Accountant: A Theory of Auditing and Plunder"). Border and Sobel characterize efficient mechanisms and argue that efficiency entails no loss of optimality. We characterize tight mechanisms and argue that tightness entails no loss of optimality. We show that tight mechanisms form a subset of efficient mechanisms. Therefore, tightness refines efficiency without loss of optimality. By characterizing tight mechanisms, one can replicate the insights from Border and Sobel (1987) and Chander and Wilde (1998). A novel insight is how and in which order the principal uses different instruments to provide incentives to different agent types. Further, we describe a procedure for constructing efficient mechanisms in a setting with a continuum of types.

Suggested Citation

  • Deniz Kattwinkel & Justus Preusser, 2025. "Tight Samurai Accountant," Papers 2509.24673, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2025.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2509.24673
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.24673
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kim C. Border & Joel Sobel, 1987. "Samurai Accountant: A Theory of Auditing and Plunder," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 54(4), pages 525-540.
    2. Parkash Chander & Louis L. Wilde, 1998. "A General Characterization of Optimal Income Tax Enforcement," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(1), pages 165-183.
    3. Parkash Chander, 1998. "A Stronger Measure of Risk Aversion and a General Characterization of Optimal Income Tax Enforcement," Economics Working Paper Archive 399, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    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. Martin Besfamille & Pablo Olmos, 2010. "Inspectors or Google Earth? Optimal fiscal policies under uncertain detection of evaders," Department of Economics Working Papers 2010-09, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
    2. Ahmadzadeh, Amirreza, 2024. "Costly state verification with Limited Commitment," TSE Working Papers 24-1570, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    3. Kotowski, Maciej H. & Weisbach, David A. & Zeckhauser, Richard J., 2014. "Signaling with Audits: Mimicry, Wasteful Expenditures, and Non-compliance in a Model of Tax Enforcement," Working Paper Series rwp14-001, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    4. Leandro Arozamena & Martin Besfamille & Pablo Sanguinetti, 2010. "Optimal taxes and penalties when the government cannot commit to its audit policy," Department of Economics Working Papers 2010-10, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
    5. Sebastián Castillo, 2024. "Tax policy design in a hierarchical model with occupational decisions," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 31(5), pages 1295-1341, October.
    6. CHANDER, Parkash, 2000. "A simple measure of risk aversion in the large and an application," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2000041, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    7. Martin Besfamille & Cecilia Parlatore Siritto, 2009. "Modernization of Tax Administrations and Optimal Fiscal Policies," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 11(6), pages 897-926, December.
    8. Marcelo Arbex & Enlinson Mattos, 2010. "Poverty and the Optimal General Income Tax-cum-Audit Policy," Working Papers 02-2010, Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade de Ribeirão Preto.
    9. Dechenaux, Emmanuel & Samuel, Andrew, 2014. "Announced vs. surprise inspections with tipping-off," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 167-183.
    10. Amedeo Piolatto & Gwenola Trotin, 2016. "Optimal Income Tax Enforcement under Prospect Theory," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 18(1), pages 29-41, February.
    11. Chiara Canta & Helmuth Cremer & Firouz Gahvari, 2024. "Welfare‐improving tax evasion," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 126(1), pages 98-126, January.
    12. Montalvo, José G. & Piolatto, Amedeo & Raya, Josep, 2020. "Transaction-tax evasion in the housing market," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    13. Wided Mattoussi & Foued Mattoussi, 2010. "Adoption of Modern Irrigation Technologies in the Presence of Water Theft and Corruption: Evidence from Public Irrigated Areas in Medjez El Bab," Working Papers 570, Economic Research Forum, revised 11 Jan 2010.
    14. Gwenola Trotin & Amedeo Piolatto, 2011. "Optimal tax enforcement under prospect theory," Working Papers. Serie AD 2011-24, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    15. Bayer, Ralph-C. & Oberhofer, Harald & Winner, Hannes, 2015. "The occurrence of tax amnesties: Theory and evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 70-82.
    16. Ralph-C Bayer, 2003. "Income Tax Evasion with Morally Constraint Taxpayers: The Role of Evasion Opportunities and Evasion Cost," School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 2003-04, University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy.
    17. Nigar Hashimzade & Gareth Myles, 2017. "Risk-based Audits in a Behavioral Model," Public Finance Review, , vol. 45(1), pages 140-165, January.
    18. Duccio Gamannossi degl’Innocenti & Matthew D. Rablen, 2017. "Tax avoidance and optimal income tax enforcement," IFS Working Papers W17/08, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    19. Jellal, Mohamed & Bouzahzah, Mohamed, 2012. "Corruption and tax evasion an optimal policy," MPRA Paper 38813, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. M. Besfamille & N. Figueroa & L. Guzmán‐Lizardo, 2025. "Ramsey Pricing Revisited: Natural Monopoly Regulation With Evaders," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(4), pages 569-588, December.

    More about this item

    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:arx:papers:2509.24673. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.