Recently, the European Commission published working paper N.41, entitled “Behavioural Economics and Taxation” summarizing central parts of economic literature on integrated behavioural economic models that take into account both psychological and purely economic factors in decision-making of taxpayers.

The paper discusses the measurement problems of tax evasion, traditional tax compliance models and the literature on social interaction and tax compliance.

The survey highlights the importance of experimental studies on tax compliance that have the advantage of overcoming classical measurement problems and are able to model economic incentives in a straightforward way.

The survey also includes a short outlook on how policymakers can use existing research. The paper notes that further research is needed in the area of cross-cultural studies and urges for more field experiments.