We investigate the effects of an institutional mechanism that incentivizes taxpayers to blow the whistle on collusive corruption and tax compliance. We explore this through a formal leniency program. In our experiment, we nest collusive corruption within a tax evasion framework. We not only study the effect of the presence of such a mechanism on behavior, but also the dynamic effect caused by the introduction and the removal of leniency. We find that in the presence of a leniency mechanism, subjects collude and accept bribes less often while paying more taxes, but there is no increase in bribe offers. Our results show that the introduction of the opportunity to blow the whistle decreases the collusion and bribe acceptance rate, and increases the collected tax yield. It also does not encourage bribe offers. In contrast, the removal of the institutional mechanism does not induce negative effects, suggesting a positive spillover effect of leniency that persists even after the mechanism has been removed.

We investigate the effects of an institutional mechanism that incentivizes taxpayers to blow the whistle on collusive corruption and tax compliance. We explore this through a formal leniency program. In our experiment, we nest collusive corruption within a tax evasion framework. We not only study the effect of the presence of such a mechanism on behavior, but also the dynamic effect caused by the introduction and the removal of leniency. We find that in the presence of a leniency mechanism, subjects collude and accept bribes less often while paying more taxes, but there is no increase in bribe offers. Our results show that the introduction of the opportunity to blow the whistle decreases the collusion and bribe acceptance rate, and increases the collected tax yield. It also does not encourage bribe offers. In contrast, the removal of the institutional mechanism does not induce negative effects, suggesting a positive spillover effect of leniency that persists even after the mechanism has been removed.

No abstract

The preference reversal phenomenon is one of the most important, long-standing, and widespread anomalies contradicting economic models of decisions under risk. It describes the robust observation of frequent "standard reversals" where long-shot gambles are valued above moderate ones but then the latter are chosen, while the opposite "nonstandard reversals" happen rarely. This inconsistency casts severe doubts on commonly-used preference elicitation methods. Strikingly, alternative designs which should eliminate the phenomenon produce frequent nonstandard reversals instead, in a puzzling reversal of the phenomenon. We develop and test a model predicting when the phenomenon should occur, when its reversal should occur instead, and what determines the magnitude of the effects. The reversal of the phenomenon is predicted as a consequence of stochastic choice and risk aversion, without invoking any behavioral bias. The original phenomenon arises from stochastic choice and a systematic bias in monetary valuations, which is restricted to long-shot gambles. To validate the model, we conduct two experiments leading to the preference reversal phenomenon and its reversal, respectively. We employ a novel empirical approach allowing us to disentangle choice and valuation errors by relying on utilities estimated out of sample, and confirm that reversals are associated with errors in monetary valuations of long-shots, with the upward bias quantified at 293% in monetary terms. The data also confirms the model's novel predictions, showing that a larger bias strengthens the phenomenon and higher risk aversion strengthens its reversal. Surprisingly, our analysis implies that the magnitude of the original phenomenon has been underestimated so far.

Differences in cognitive sophistication and effort are at the root of behavioral heterogeneity in economics. To explain this heterogeneity, behavioral models assume that certain choices indicate higher cognitive effort. A fundamental problem with this approach is that observing a choice does not reveal how the choice is made, and hence choice data is insufficient to establish the link between cognitive effort and behavior. We show that deliberation times provide an individually-measurable correlate of cognitive effort. We test a model of heterogeneous cognitive depth, incorporating stylized facts from the psychophysical literature, which makes predictions on the relation between choices, cognitive effort, incentives, and deliberation times. We confirm the predicted relations experimentally in different kinds of games.