Testing Enforcement Strategies in the Field: Threat, Moral Appeal and Social Information
- We run a large-scale natural field experiment to evaluate alternative strategies to enforce compliance with the law. The experiment varies the text of mailings sent to potential evaders of TV license fees. We find a strong effect of mailings, leading to a substantial increase in compliance. Among different mailings, a threat treatment which makes a high detection risk salient has a significant deterrent effect. Neither appealing to morals nor imparting information about others’ behavior enhances compliance on aggregate. However, the information condition has a weak positive effect in municipalities where evasion is believed to be common.
Document Type: | Article |
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Language: | English |
Author(s): | Gerlinde Fellner, Rupert Sausgruber, Christian Traxler |
Parent Title (English): | Journal of the European Economic Association |
Publication year: | 2013 |
Publishing Institution: | Hertie School |
First Page: | 634 |
Last Page: | 660 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1111/jeea.12013| |
Release Date: | 2016/02/19 |
Tag: | compliance; enforcement strategies; field experiments; perceptions |
Volume: | 11 |
Issue: | 3 |
Notes: | This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Journal of the European Economic Association. The final authenticated version is available online at: DOI 10.1111/jeea.12013| |
Hertie School Research: | Political Economy | Cluster |
Licence of document (German): | Metadaten (öffentlich), post-print |