NES Center for the Study of Diversity and Social Interactions and HSE International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development are happy to invite you to our joint meeting of the Research Seminar on Diversity and Development and HSE Seminar on Political Economy.
Michael T. Dorsch (CEU) will present the paper “History, Trust in Institutions, and Regulatory Compliance” (joint with Anand Murugesan).
Registration: till noon of April 20, link to video-conference will be sent up to 5 p.m. (Moscow time).
Abstract:
What are the historical determinants of current levels of trust in public institutions? Does historically rooted trust explain individuals' compliance with government regulations? To evaluate these questions, we examine the effect of historical Habsburg rule on contemporary levels of public trust and a variety of compliance outcomes. We have conducted online surveys in cities within Italy and Austria treated with the Habsburg rule for varying lengths of time. In Italy, we sel ect cities without any Habsburg rule to compare with neighboring cities with some length of rule (50 to 150 years) or regions under a long reign (300 - 600 years). We use list-experiments (or the item-count technique) to elicit trust and compliance behavior, as well as self-reported measures of other individual-level covariates. As compliance outcomes, we study bribery, tax evasion, and COVID-19 related restrictions. For tax compliance, we introduce a novel behavioral choice in the survey -- signing up for free expert tax consultation vs. receiving a less valuable Amazon gift card -- that elicits revealed preference for tax compliance. As we have data only fr om the first round of surveys, we have only preliminary results to share. Our focus in the seminar will be on results that relate to income tax compliance.