Nudging for Tax Compliance: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract Governments increasingly use nudges to improve tax collection. We synthesise the growing literature on nudging experiments using meta-analytical methods. We find that, relative to the baseline where about a quarter of taxpayers are compliant, simple reminders increase the probability of compliance by 2.7 percentage points, while tax morale and deterrence nudges increase compliance by an additional 1.4 and 3.2 percentage points. Our further results highlight the conditions where nudges are more or less effective. Overall, our findings imply that taxpayers are biased by various informational and behavioural constraints, and that nudges can be of some help in overcoming these frictions.