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Does Tax Evasion Affect Economic Crime? *
Author(s) -
Argentiero Amedeo,
Chiarini Bruno,
Marzano Elisabetta
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
fiscal studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.63
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1475-5890
pISSN - 0143-5671
DOI - 10.1111/1475-5890.12214
Subject(s) - deterrence (psychology) , tax evasion , economics , evasion (ethics) , incentive , affect (linguistics) , usury , deterrence theory , property crime , organised crime , monetary economics , public economics , microeconomics , criminology , violent crime , political science , law , law and economics , geography , sociology , immune system , archaeology , islam , immunology , biology , communication
This paper examines the effect of tax evasion on criminal activities in Italy. Specifically, we consider three types of crime that are related to economic determinants: property crimes (including robbery, theft and car theft), fraud and usury. We estimate different econometric models using annual data from the Italian provinces (NUTS‐3 level) for the 2004–12 period. We find that tax evasion positively affects economic crimes, and our results suggest that tax evasion is an incentive to engage in criminal activities, in addition to more standard determinants that we include in the analysis, such as labour market opportunities and deterrence. Moreover, these crimes demonstrate different levels of persistence over time and reflect different adjustment costs.