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BRINCH KIRCHLER, The Economic Psychology of Tax Behaviour (Cambridge University Press, 2007, 243 pages, $91.00).
What factors affect individual tax compliance? For a student of behavioral tax, Professor Erich Kirchler's recent book is a good introduction to the complex field of tax-compliance research. Wim its bibliography of 500 articles, The Economic Psychology of Tax Behaviour thoroughly summarizes prior compliance research across disciplines, particularly from economic decision-making and social psychology.
A more experienced behavioral tax researcher will find the themes presented here familiar. These readers may benefit, however, from the book's global perspective. The author, a professor of psychology at the University of Vienna who visited at the Australian National University at Canberra and the University of Sydney while writing the book, incorporates research from Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Latin America, and Africa mat U.S. researchers may not have studied.
Kirchler's review of prior tax compliance literature is organized into four main areas.
In the first, labeled the "Social Representation of Taxes," he compiles research on the psychological determinants of tax compliance, such as tax knowledge, individual perceptions and attitudes toward...