The Last Refuge of a Scoundrel? Patriotism and Tax Compliance

Abstract

We link two cross-country datasets to analyse the relationship between individuals' patriotism and attitudes toward tax compliance. The datasets contain a number of variables that shape individuals' opportunities as well as expected benefits from tax evasion. We find a robust positive association between patriotism and tax compliance. The findings survive a variety of robustness checks, including an instrumental variables estimation to tackle the possible endogeneity of patriotism. © 2012 The London School of Economics and Political Science.